NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Rutgers researchers have discovered what could be the newest target for drugs in the treatment of memory and learning disabilities as well as diseases such as Alzheimer's and fetal alcohol syndrome: a protein known as cypin. Cypin is found throughout the body, but in the brain it regulates nerve cell or neuron branching. Branching or dendrite growth is an important process in normal brain function and is thought to increase when a person learns. A reduction in branching is associated with certain neurological diseases. "The identification of cypin and understanding how it works in the brain is particularly exciting since it opens up new avenues for the treatment of serious neurological disorders," said principal investigator Bonnie Firestein, assistant professor of cell biology and neuroscience at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. "This paves the way to designing new drugs that could target this protein molecule."

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 4826 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Pet project may to help unravel the biological basis of character. HELEN R. PILCHER A test that can assess a dog's personality has helped to prove what pet owners know, but many psychologists deny: pooches have personality. The test, developed by Sam Gosling from the University of Texas at Austin and his colleagues, may help researchers to unravel the biology of animal and human character. Scientists readily accept that animals and humans share a similar anatomy and physiology, says Gosling, but many are reluctant to say that they share the traits of emotion and personality too. "Some see it as one more blow against the special status of humans," he says. Instead, many people believe that pet owners project their own personality onto their animals, and that true character is lacking. But personality traits are just as likely to have evolved in animals as physical traits, argues Gosling. What was needed was a test to prove that canine character exists. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2004

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 4825 - Posted: 06.24.2010

How does your brain pass the time while you're sleeping? In a study designed to apply state-of-the-art techniques to this old question, Sidarta Ribeiro and his colleagues at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, recorded over a hundred neurons continuously over the course of the normal sleepwake cycle in rats, focusing on four major forebrain areas that are essential for rodent-specific behaviors. Halfway through the recording time, animals were transiently allowed to explore novel objects placed in their cage. The researchers found that in all the forebrain areas examined the neuronal firing patterns recorded when the rats initially explored the new objects reappeared for up to 48 hours after these objects were removed. This reverberation of neuronal activity that they recorded was most significant during slow-wave sleep (a state that accounts for nearly 40% of a rat's life), decreased during waking periods, and was highly variable during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 4824 - Posted: 01.20.2004

Proteins which behave like those linked to vCJD and BSE may play a role in forming memories, scientists claim. Prions, abnormal proteins which change normal proteins into copies of themselves, are thought to cause neurodegenerative diseases. But researchers at New York's Columbia University say a protein which behaves in the same way may help make memories. Writing in Nature magazine, they say prions may perform other beneficial roles in the body. In diseases such as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, prions enter the brain and reproduce, converting other proteins into copies of themselves. These accumulate in the brain and progressively damage and destroy cells. (C) BBC

Keyword: Prions; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 4823 - Posted: 01.19.2004

What feels good is good for you too. Making love can boost the heart, relieve pain and help keep you healthy By Alice Park The "sex glow." Carrie Bradshaw and her Sex and the City trio may be the champions of detecting it, getting it and keeping it, but you don't need a closetful of Prada to appreciate the rosy radiance that follows a pleasant sexual encounter. The fact is, sex leaves its mark, not just on the mind but on the body as well. Researchers have begun to explore its effects on almost every part of the body, from the brain to the heart to the immune system. Studies are showing that arousal and an active sex life may lead to a longer life, better heart health, an improved ability to ward off pain, a more robust immune system and even protection against certain cancers, not to mention lower rates of depression. But finding mechanisms for these benefits and proving cause and effect are no easy matter. "The associations are out there, so there has to be an explanation for it," says Dr. Ronald Glaser, director of the Institute of Behavioral Medicine Research at Ohio State University. Thanks to a better understanding of the biochemistry of arousal, as well as advances in imaging techniques, doctors are closing in on some possibilities. Their efforts are leading them to the hormone oxytocin, which may be the key lubricant for the machinery of sex. Known for controlling the muscles of the uterus during childbirth, oxytocin surges up to five times as high as its normal blood level during orgasm. Studies in animals have also revealed oxytocin's softer side. It is responsible for helping individuals forge strong emotional bonds, earning its moniker as the cuddle hormone. Released in the brain, oxytocin works in the blood, where it travels to tissues as distant as the uterus, as well as along nerve fibers, where it regulates body temperature, blood pressure, wound healing and even relief from pain. Copyright © 2004 Time Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4822 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Kathy A. Svitil From November 10–14, a diverse lot of physicists, engineers, oceanographers, physiologists, and other researchers met in Austin, Texas, for the 146th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America. Over 700 papers were presented. The highlights include: Facing the music: Many professional musicians shell out hundreds of dollars to throw their trumpets, tubas, saxophones, and other instruments into a deep freeze. Fans of the technique, called cryogenic tempering, say it improves the tone of instruments and makes them easier to play by realigning the molecules that make up the lattice of which metal is composed. But scientists at Tufts University say the musicians are probably just blowing their money away. Jesse Jones IV and Chris Rogers had a cryogenics company chill five professional-grade trumpets down to –321 degrees Fahrenheit in a chamber cooled by liquid nitrogen, let them sit for 10 hours, then slowly warmed them up to room temperature over a period of 20–25 hours. Jones and Rogers found no statistical difference in the quality of the sound produced by the treated trumpets compared to that of five untreated instruments; a microscopic analysis of the trumpets did not reveal any structural changes. Six trumpet players, beginners to professionals, were asked to assess the quality of all 10 instruments and guess whether or not they’d been treated. They detected no difference in the tone or playability of the instruments and correctly identified the cooled trumpets only 52.5 percent of the time: “Virtually a coin flip,” Jones says. “I also found that there was a great variation in a single player’s tone when he was well practiced versus somewhat out of practice. This leads me to believe that you’re better off keeping your trumpet at home and practicing rather than sending it away to freeze it.” © 2003 The Walt Disney Company. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 4821 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Our pharmaceutical drugs are turning up in the environment and in animals. What will the consequences be? By Kathy A. Svitil Over the past few years, ecologists surveying the waters around waste treatment plants have found contraceptives, synthetic musks, ibuprofen, and other compounds flushed off or out of our bodies and into the environment via municipal effluent. A recent study in Tromsų, in northern Norway , for example, found extremely elevated levels of caffeine in the seawater of the Tromsų Sound. Now the compounds are turning up in animals as well—with unknown consequences. Environmental toxicologist Bryan Brooks and his colleagues collected bluegill, channel catfish, and black crappie from Pecan Creek, a stream in the Dallas suburb of Denton, Texas , that is prime dumping ground for effluent from the city’s waste treatment plant. The researchers took brain, liver, and muscle samples from the fish and tested them for fluoxetine, the active ingredient in the antidepressant Prozac. Fluoxetine and norfluoxetine, the metabolized form of the drug, were found in every tissue sample and in high enough concentrations, Brooks says, to warrant studies of their possible physiological effects. Fluoxetine blocks nerves from gobbling up serotonin—a neurotransmitter known to elevate mood and increase relaxation—from the synapses between communicating neurons. In humans, the result is less anxiety and an improved sense of well-being. “We would suspect that some level of fluoxetine exposure would influence serotonin in the fish and could cause behavioral changes,” Brooks says. “It has also been shown that even low levels of pharmaceuticals may affect fish,” he says. In addition, in lab studies, other researchers found that injections of fluoxetine led to less aggressive behavior in fish. Brooks cautions, however, that “injection is a very different form of exposure than a fish taking up a chemical across its gills or acquiring it in its food. At this point it is too early to suggest that the concentrations of fluoxetine that we’ve detected might result in a behavioral response.” © 2003 The Walt Disney Company. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 4820 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Discovery provides taste of a possible route for human drug development. HELEN R. PILCHER A simple sugar called trehalose helps to relieve the symptoms of Huntington's disease in mice. The discovery may help researchers to design drug treatments for the human condition. Huntington's disease is an inherited illness that causes profound cognitive and movement problems. It affects 1 in 10,000 people. There is currently no cure. Nobuyuki Nukina and colleagues from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Saitama, Japan, tested a variety of compounds on a test-tube model of the disease1. They discovered that sugar compounds seemed to have a positive effect. They then tested one specific sugar called trehalose on genetically modified mice with Huntington's disease-like symptoms. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2004

Keyword: Huntingtons
Link ID: 4819 - Posted: 06.24.2010

-- The FDA has approved Zyprexa to treat bipolar disorder over the long-term. The FDA had previously approved Zyprexa to treat acute episodes of mania associated with bipolar disorder. Now the drug is approved to delay relapse into either mania or depression in patients with bipolar disorder. "Bipolar disorder is a serious condition that can be difficult to treat. For those who achieve stability on existing medications, relapse of symptoms is all too common," says Frederick K. Goodwin, MD, director, Center on Neuroscience, Medical Progress, and Society, at the George Washington University Medical Center, Washington, D.C., says in a news release. ©1996-2004 WebMD Inc.

Keyword: Depression; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 4818 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists are learning how people can unlearn fear John Travis What are you afraid of? Do snakes or spiders get your heart racing? Or do your palms begin to sweat if you have to fly or give a public presentation? For many people, these situations trigger the adrenaline-fueled stress reaction that's hardwired into all animals. This fear response kicks into overdrive even though there's no immediate danger. Such phobias aren't the only fear disorders to strike people. Some individuals experience panic attacks for no apparent reason. Others faced with the horrors of war, natural disasters, or physical abuse develop posttraumatic stress disorder, a sometimes-debilitating condition that can include horrific nightmares and flashbacks. All told, the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md., estimates that 19 million people in the United States suffer from disorders that include inappropriate fear responses. Psychologists and neuroscientists, however, are making progress at understanding how to conquer fear. It's not a simple matter of erasing scary memories. Instead, it seems that people can learn to suppress a fright reaction by repeatedly confronting, in a safe manner, the fear-triggering memory or stimulus. For specific phobias, up to 90 percent of people can be cured through such exposure therapy, says David Barlow, director of Boston University's Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders. In a symposium at last November's Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in New Orleans, researchers described recent studies of how this process, known as fear extinction, works in animals and people. For example, investigators have begun to home in on the neural circuitry required for extinction. "There must be some structure in the brain that inhibits fear," says Gregory Quirk of the Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico. Copyright ©2004 Science Service. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 4817 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Five years ago broadcaster Sheena McDonald was hit by a police van and suffered massive head injuries. After a long painful journey to rebuild her shattered life and personality, she asks herself if she can ever be the same person she used to be. I am not a neuro-scientist but you could say I have coal-face expertise, because I am a survivor of head-injury. I suffered such a severe head-injury that the medical profession thought that surviving at all was as much as could be expected. Just over a year after the injury, a doctor described me as "a walking miracle" - and I was still in primary recovery. Five years on, I'm very much better. And given that the professionals are surprised - to the best of my knowledge, "miracle" is not a clinical term - I now have a layman's obsession to understand as much as I can about how the brain works - and how mine defied convention. (C) BBC

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 4816 - Posted: 01.18.2004

TERENCE CHEA, Associated Press Writer A federal judge decided Friday to allow a team of marine biologists to keep testing a new sonar system designed to detect whales deep in the Pacific Ocean, rejecting a request by some environmentalists for a permanent injunction against the experiment. U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti heard arguments from the New Hampshire firm that designed the system, the government agency that approved the testing and environmental groups that claimed the radar would harm marine mammals. Scientific Solutions Inc. of Nashua, N.H., resumed testing of the sonar last week off the coast of Central California after receiving a permit from the National Marine Fisheries Service. The judge said Friday that the permit was issued properly. ©2004 Associated Press

Keyword: Hearing; Animal Communication
Link ID: 4815 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — People feel disgusted about something, or someone, due to an evolved mechanism that helps us ward off potential sources of infection, according to a new study. The study, published in the current Royal Society Biology Letters, involved one of the biggest Web-based experiments ever conducted. Over 40,000 test subjects participated by rating a series of images according to how disgusting the objects, animals, and humans depicted in the photographs seemed to be. The test included pairs of similar images not shown in order. Copyright © 2004 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Emotions; Evolution
Link ID: 4814 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Current advice: Put your baby to sleep on its back Sharing a bed with a baby who is less than eight weeks old may increase the risk of cot death, research has found. It had been thought it was safe to share your bed with a newborn provided you didn't smoke, drink or take drugs. But the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (FSID) has changed its advice to new parents on the back of the latest research. Cot death experts from across Europe collaborated on The Lancet study, which focused on 745 cases. "Today, FSID will start alerting parents to the fact that research has found a link between cot death and bedsharing with babies under eight weeks of age." (C) BBC

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 4813 - Posted: 01.16.2004

Where's the beef? Not on everyone's table. Some wary consumers began banishing the meat from their diets after officials confirmed the first U.S. case of mad cow disease last month. But a technology that is already making the food people eat safer may be the key to eliminating mad cow disease, scientists report in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Richard Meyer, co-author of the May, 2003 study and a food safety researcher, has found a way to destroy the misshapen proteins called PrPSc prions (normal prions are called PrP), believed to cause mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). "We take the meat and re-cook it and then we vacuum pack it in plastic and then go ahead and pressurize it at a certain temperature, for a certain time," Meyer explains. The process seems to stop the action of the renegade PrPSc protein that, left unchecked, forms strings, coils, and folds into different shapes, changing normal chemical function. Inside the body, the deadly protein searches for and latches onto healthy PrP, building a pile of misshaped protein that crystallizes in clumps called "plaque." © ScienCentral, 2000-2003.

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 4812 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The key cognitive step that allowed humans to become the only animals using language may have been identified, scientists say. A new study on monkeys found that while they are able to understand basic rules about word patterns, they are not able to follow more complex rules that underpin the crucial next stage of language structure. For example, the monkeys could master simple word structures, analogous to realising that "the" and "a" are always followed by another word. But they were unable to grasp phrase patterns analogous to "if... then..." constructions. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Animal Communication; Language
Link ID: 4811 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Today, we know a little bit more about one of mankind's deadliest enemies, the mosquito. Scientists have taken an important step toward understanding the mosquito's sense of smell, an avenue of research that may lead to better ways to repel the deadly insect. In a joint effort reported in the Jan. 15 issue of the journal Nature , researchers at Vanderbilt and Yale universities have verified that the antennae of female Anopheles mosquitoes that prey on humans contain receptors that respond to one of the chemical compounds found in human sweat. "This validates our hypothesis that the olfactory system of mosquitoes--and other insects--consists of an array of different receptors, each of which responds to a very narrow range of odorants," says Laurence J. Zwiebel, associate professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt, who participated in the study. His co-authors were Vanderbilt graduate student A. Nicole Fox along with Yale colleagues Elissa A. Halem, a graduate student, and professor John R. Carlson.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 4810 - Posted: 01.16.2004

Essential to differentiate between two types of dementia before treating NEW YORK--Looking at specific changes in alertness and cognition may provide a reliable method for distinguishing Alzheimer's disease (AD) from dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and normal aging, according a new study from the January 27, 2004, issue of Neurology, the official journal of the American Academy of Neurology, co-authored by Tanis J. Ferman, Ph.D., an expert on DLB. Lewy bodies are round collections of proteins in the brain that are considered the pathological hallmark of Parkinson's disease. Lewy bodies are never found in healthy normal brains. In Parkinson's disease the Lewy bodies are largely localized to an area of the brain stem called the substantia nigra. In DLB, Lewy bodies are also found in brain's cortex. Although DLB accounts for as much as 20 to 35 percent of the dementia seen in the United States, treatment and diagnosis is often complicated by a lack of information about the disease. In the study, Dr. Ferman and colleagues examined episodes of fluctuation in cognition (problems in thinking or concentration) experienced by individuals with AD or DLB or normal older adults who had no signs of dementia.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 4809 - Posted: 01.16.2004

Women around the world are being told they can now have an orgasm at the touch of a button. The makers of "Slightest Touch" say their device can give women longer, better and more intense orgasms. They claim their device can trigger an orgasm without touching a woman's genital area. According to the manufacturers, Slightest Touch works by stimulating the body's sexual nerve pathway. Women start by drinking an electrolyte sports drink 20 minutes before using the device. They then apply two white electrode pads inside their ankles. These pads are connected to the Slightest Touch device, which is about the size of a personal stereo. With the flick of a switch, women can literally get turned on. (C) BBC

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4808 - Posted: 01.15.2004

Gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA) is the major inhibitory neurotransmitter in the human central nervous system. Previous research has suggested that GABA is involved in many of the neurochemical pathways affecting alcohol use, abuse and dependence. A study in the January issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research , using family-based analyses to examine the role of a cluster of GABAA receptor genes on chromosome 15q, becomes one of the first to demonstrate a consistent association between alcohol dependence and GABAA receptor gene GABRG3. "There are several lines of evidence that suggest that GABA is involved in alcohol use and abuse," explained Danielle M. Dick, assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine and first author of the study. "For example, chemicals that increase the activity of GABAA receptors tend to accentuate the behavioral effects of alcohol, such as motor incoordination, sedation, and withdrawal signs, while chemicals that block GABAA receptors lessen these effects." For this study, Dick and her colleagues decided to focus on GABAA receptor genes on chromosome 15q because of earlier findings from the multi-site Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA) "suggesting a gene influencing alcoholism-related phenotypes in this area," she said.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 4807 - Posted: 01.15.2004