A drug used to treat skin infections including Athlete's Foot could help to slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease, scientists say. A team at University College London said tests of Clioquinol on 36 patients were "encouraging". Their disease was shown to develop less quickly than those given a dummy pill. A second study in the journal Archives of Neurology found stroke patients are at an increased risk of developing Alzheimer's. In Alzheimer's disease, protein deposits called amyloid plaques form which impede and kill nerves in the brain. The plaques need zinc for the proteins to clump together. Clioquinol, which has antibacterial and antifungal properties, is used as an ointment to treat skin infections, but it also binds metal atoms. (C) BBC

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 4706 - Posted: 12.16.2003

by Maria A. Oquendo, M.D. Psychiatric Times Patients suffering from depressive disorders, particularly those with a history of suicide attempt, are at increased risk for future suicidal acts. Neurobiological studies of suicidal behavior have investigated anomalies that distinguish suicide attempters and completers from individuals who are depressed but do not engage in any suicidal behavior. To aid in the development of a predictive model in which both biological measures and clinical instruments are used to identify those at risk for future suicidal acts, studies have focused on biological correlates of behavioral and other factors identified by clinical studies as indicative of higher risk for suicidal behavior, such as aggression/impulsivity. Neuroendocrine challenge and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) studies suggest that suicide attempters have decreased function in the serotonin system (Malone et al., 1996; Siever et al., 1984; Virkkunen et al., 1989). Among individuals with depression, high-lethality suicide attempts are associated with even lower serotonergic function (Malone et al., 1996; Mann and Malone, 1997). Neuroendocrine challenges and CSF measures are, however, unable to provide specific information about the anatomical location of abnormality. So far, it is known from studies mapping postmortem serotonin receptor binding that cortical serotonergic abnormalities associated with suicide are localized to the ventral prefrontal cortex (PFC) region of the brain (Arango et al., 1997). Positron emission tomography (PET) studies offer a distinct advantage over previous methodologies, allowing for more precise in vivo identification and study of the activity of brain regions that differ in those who have survived a suicide attempt of high lethality, compared to those surviving a low-lethality attempt. Given the findings of CSF and neuroendocrine studies with respect to differences in serotonin levels between high- and low-lethality attempters, PET studies of high-lethality attempters would be expected to reveal pronounced differences. © 2003 Psychiatric Times. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 4705 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News — Unfaithful male salamanders returning home might find their female partners waiting with rolling pins, new research reveals. In a study slated for publication in the journal Animal Behavior, behavioral ecologist Ethan Prosen of the University of Louisiana in Lafayette shows that red-backed female salamanders (Plethodon cinereus) sexually intimidate their Casanova partners by punishing them with bites and aggressive postures. "We do not know of any other animals where the females use this coercion and the males also use coercion," Prosen told Discovery News. Copyright © 2003 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4704 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By RICHARD A. FRIEDMAN, M.D. Everyone knows the holiday season can be hazardous to one's health. Just think of the warnings already abundant in the news media, alerting to the perils of gluttony and excess, not to mention overshopping. Even the fitness clubs are gearing up for their post-holiday campaign, in time to capitalize on the ill effects of guilty pleasure. And just when you thought you had all bases covered, up rises the threat of the holiday blues. We are, it seems, to be mentally as well as physically challenged from Christmas to New Year's. Conventional wisdom has it that the season of joy and cheer is really a harbinger of serious depression for some and a general downer and a disappointment for many. Is it really all that bad? Judging from the Internet, one would think that an epidemic was under way. Typing "holiday blues" in Google yielded nearly two million hits. A quick look at the first 100 or so showed a variation on two themes, how to diagnose the disorder and how to chase it away with a medley of nostrums. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 4703 - Posted: 12.16.2003

By ANAHAD O'CONNOR and DENISE GRADY The Food and Drug Administration effectively approved the use of an obesity drug, Xenical, for adolescents yesterday. This is the first time that a weight-loss drug has been permitted to treat overweight children. A spokeswoman for the drug agency said it had decided to allow the manufacturer to add to the Xenical labels two studies that involved children to help doctors prescribe the correct doses for 12- to 16-year-olds. Terence Hurley, a spokesman for Hoffman-La Roche, the manufacturer, said it had no plans to market the drug for teenagers, but added that it was good news for children who battle obesity. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 4702 - Posted: 12.16.2003

By ERICA GOODE Many American psychiatrists were taken by surprise last week when British drug regulators told doctors to stop writing prescriptions for all but one of a newer generation of antidepressant drugs to treat depressed children under 18. Now the psychiatrists are trying to figure out how to advise the parents of the young patients who come to them for help. Some parents, the doctors say, are calling to ask if the drugs their children are taking are really safe. "The news has certainly generated anxiety, concern and questions," said Dr. Flemming Graae, the chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, N.Y. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 4701 - Posted: 12.16.2003

Columbus, Ohio – A tiny difference in a gene may signal that a person is twice as susceptible to multiple sclerosis (MS) as normal. It could also foretell of a more rapidly progressing form of the disease, according to new research at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health. The study focused on a gene known as CD24, which directs the making of a protein found on immune cells and that plays an important role in immune responses. Specifically, the study looked at two different versions of the CD24 gene. The two versions differ because of a minute difference known as a single nucleotide polymorphism, or SNP (pronounced ‘snip’). A SNP is a difference of one so-called base, or nucleotide, in the gene’s DNA compared to the same gene in another person. SNPs are common and occur naturally. They may help give a unique pattern to each person’s DNA.

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis
Link ID: 4700 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A study published in the December issue of Archives of Neurology and currently available online shows that levetiracetam reduced phasic spasticity, which is marked by spasms and painful muscle cramps, in 100 percent of patients in a small clinical study. "It's amazing how many MS patients can't walk, can't move, and you treat their spasticity and they're fine," said Dr. Kathleen Hawker, assistant professor of neurology at UT Southwestern and lead author of the study. "What's nice about these drugs is that they also work for nerve pain, which in turn improves the patient's mood, so we can use one drug for three things instead of prescribing pain killers and antidepressants in addition to the spasticity therapies." Spasticity is often seen in patients with MS and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), as well as after a stroke or spinal-cord injury. It can lead to loss of balance, increased risk of falls, pain, fatigue, and walking difficulties.

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis; Epilepsy
Link ID: 4699 - Posted: 12.16.2003

The anti-spasticity medication baclofen holds promise for helping cocaine abusers overcome their addiction, a study by a UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute researcher finds. No medication currently holds U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for treatment of cocaine addiction. Published in the Dec. 15 edition of the peer-reviewed Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, the randomized, double-blind study found that baclofen used in conjunction with substance abuse counseling significantly reduced cocaine use in recovering addicts compared to placebo coupled with counseling. The study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse as part of a project to screen medications with potential for treating cocaine dependence. "The research shows for the first time, using scientifically rigorous methods, that Baclofen can help people reduce their cocaine use when they are in drug abuse counseling," said Steven Shoptaw, the study's principal investigator and a clinical psychologist at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. "Our findings give us a strong starting place to conduct more definite studies on whether this medication can help cocaine addicts when used outside controlled research clinics. This offers new hope to hundreds of thousands of cocaine abusers who struggle with addiction."

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 4698 - Posted: 12.16.2003

NewScientist.com news service Our brains instinctively view our shadows as an extension of our bodies, a new research has shown. Subjects in the study reacted to stimuli near the shadow of one hand as if the stimuli were affecting the hand itself, found Francesco Pavani, at Royal Holloway University of London, UK, and Umberto Castiello, at the Università degli Studi di Trento, Italy. The results confirm an intuitive bond people feel with their shady outlines, says Margaret Livingstone, a vision researcher at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 4697 - Posted: 06.24.2010

St. Louis, -- For some brain tumors, the key to success is not just what you know but who you know, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. In trying to develop a mouse model of neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1), a genetic disorder that predisposes children to certain types of brain tumors, the team discovered that tumors only developed when all brain cells were genetically abnormal, not just the cell type that becomes cancerous. The study is featured on the cover of the Dec. 15 issue of the journal Cancer Research. "We are quite excited about this report as it represents the first model of this type of tumor," says principal investigator David H. Gutmann, M.D., Ph.D., the Donald O. Schnuck Family Professor of Neurology. "We've always assumed that cancer results from the loss of specific genes in a particular cell, but apparently that isn't always the case. Our findings suggest that as in real estate, location is everything – a permissive environment may be the key to whether a tumor cell becomes cancerous or just sits dormant for a person's entire life."

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 4696 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is a neurotransmitter that is integral to neurobiological functions such as anxiety, pain, memory and feeding behaviors. Researchers have found that a compound that blocks NPY activity decreases both the onset as well as the repetition of alcohol consumption. These findings have important implications for the treatment of both alcohol abuse and dependence. Peptides are a class of neurotransmitters, chemicals used by brain cells to communicate with each other. Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is the most abundant and widely distributed peptide, and is involved in a variety of neurobiological functions, including anxiety, pain, memory, and feeding behavior. Although previous animal research has implicated NPY systems in alcohol abuse and alcoholism, findings published in the December issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research are the first to show that a compound that blocks NPY activity may be useful for alcohol treatment.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 4695 - Posted: 12.15.2003

By Steve Connor, Science Editor The relationship between people and their shadows extends beyond merely feeling alone and blue together. Two Italian psychologists have found the shadow acts like an extension of the body by becoming a distant reference point that helps people perform dextrous tasks. They sayshadows cast by the body have a profound effect on visual perception, which can be easily distracted by a nearby shadow. Francesco Pavani and Umberto Castiello, of Trento University, investigated the influence of shadows by testing 10 volunteers in an experiment that measured the time it takes to react to an electrical stimulus to the forefinger or the thumb. When the volunteers felt a tingle in their forefinger they had to release a pedal under their toe, and when they felt a tingle in their thumb they had to release pressure on a pedal under their heel. © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 4694 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By WARREN ST. JOHN CHRIS LONDON remembers the first time an impotence drug came to his emotional rescue. A 41-year-old lawyer and executive recruiter in Manhattan, Mr. London had been on a few dates with a lawyer who told him she couldn't judge a man without first having sex with him. The two made plans to meet after work, and Mr. London said he felt pretty certain about what was going to happen. He also felt not a little anxious. "She was very wired — a Samantha on `Sex and the City'-type thing," he said. "She made it like it was this test — like passing the bar. I'm thinking to myself, I haven't had this sort of performance anxiety since I was 17." Thanks to a doctor friend, Mr. London happened to have a tablet of Viagra on hand, and he darted into the bathroom and gulped the blue pill. It worked as billed, and later that evening, Mr. London said, he overheard his date giving his performance a rave in a phone call to a friend. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4693 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists may be able to use simple baker's yeast to recreate the destruction wreaked by Parkinson's disease in a test tube. It is hoped that the experiments will help them devise ways to halt the disease in its tracks. US researchers overloaded yeast cells with a body chemical implicated in the human disease - then watched as Parkinson-like damage emerged. The yeast model could now be used for early tests of promising treatments. Scientists believe that Parkinson's patients have a problem in the brain caused by a "protein" called alpha-synuclein (aSyn). Even in small amounts, this protein can persuade nearby brain proteins to lose their normal shape and form irregular clusters. The shape of a protein is vital to its proper function, and the clusters appear eventually to cause brain cell death, leading to the characteristic symptoms of Parkinson's - progressively worsening tremor and muscle rigidity. (C) BBC

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 4692 - Posted: 12.14.2003

Interview by WILLIAM SPEED WEED [Q] In 1977, you made the first human body scan with magnetic resonance imaging, and the Supreme Court considers you its patent holder. Yet this year's Nobel Prize in Medicine went to Paul Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield for their discoveries in M.R.I. You've run ads in newspapers, demanding this wrong be corrected. Why? Initially, I was overwhelmed. It was just beyond my comprehension that having started it all I got left out. The Nobel committee says they do not discuss any of their findings for 50 years so they don't have to answer for their crimes until 50 years after everybody's dead. If they're going to rewrite history and they're not going to be accountable to anyone, at the bare minimum, we should try to make them accountable to world opinion. What do you think it means to be the author of an idea? Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 4691 - Posted: 12.14.2003

Past failures push investigators to be more innovative in their treatment approaches By Jill U. Adams When patients complain of pain, doctors reach for remedies on a rather dusty shelf. Opium and salicylic acid, discovered centuries ago, have fundamentally shaped practically every pain reliever on the market. Though treatment options for pain have not changed much since the ancient Greeks, an understanding of pain's basic mechanisms has progressed rapidly in the last decade. The optimism among researchers is palpable. "I think it's been unbelievable," says Frank Porreca, professor of pharmacology at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "We've had tremendous breakthroughs." Yet none of these breakthroughs has translated to new clinical treatments. "The findings add to the burgeoning body of disparate facts pertaining to pain, but are unlikely to trigger new analgesics any time soon," writes pharmacologist Alan Cowan of Temple University in Philadelphia, in an E-mail. Not a single novel class of drugs has emerged from nearly 25 years of bench work, he adds. It's not an uncommon lament among pain researchers, both basic scientists and clinicians. "It's depressing," says Jeff Mogil, professor of pain studies at McGill University in Montreal. He recounts the high-profile failures of "drugs that worked really well in animals, really ought to have worked, and didn't have any efficacy in humans at all." He cites the neurokinin antagonists that block receptors for substance P, a neuropeptide believed to alert neurons to tissue damage. The drugs weren't effective in humans. "We're still living that one down," he says. "Was it the fault of the basic science? Was it the fault of the clinical trials? What went wrong?" ©2003, The Scientist Inc.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 4690 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The government is being urged to run a national Christmas campaign about the dangers of drinks being spiked. The number of people who claim to have been sexually assaulted after drugs were put in their drinks rose to 1,000 this year, the Roofie Foundation said. The group, which helps victims, said a media campaign should be run alongside the annual drink-drive messages. Out of 30 police forces contacted by the BBC, two-thirds said they were running their own Christmas campaigns. Many forces have been issuing leaflets and posters in attempts to raise awareness of the issue. Pub and club-goers have been warned not to leave drinks unattended, and not to accept drinks from strangers. Date-rape drugs include GHB (gamma hydroxybutyrate), valium, tamazepan and rohypnol. (C) BBC

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 4689 - Posted: 12.13.2003

Bruce Bower Some animals shy away from novel settings all their lives, preferring the predictability of familiar surroundings. Although this can be a safe strategy in the short run, it may have a fatal drawback down the line. A new study finds that novelty-averse laboratory rats, after reaching maturity, died at markedly younger ages than did their more adventurous comrades. Heightened hormone responses to mildly stressful events throughout life ultimately undermined the capacity of the inhibited rats to resist tumors and other health threats, contend Sonia A. Cavigelli and Martha K. McClintock, both psychologists at the University of Chicago. In essence, stress responses cause the inhibited rats to age prematurely, the researchers conclude in an upcoming Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. These animals exhibit a 20 percent reduction in maximum life span compared with that of their bolder brethren. Copyright ©2003 Science Service.

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 4688 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Variations hint at how our lifestyle is reflected in our genes. JOHN WHITFIELD Genes involved in smell and hearing are significantly different between humans and chimpanzees, researchers have discovered. The finding could be a starting point for understanding what separates us from our closest relative. "This tells us the types of genes that are important for our differences," says Michele Cargill of the biotech company behind the comparison, Celera Diagnostics in Alameda, California. But the list does not tell us what makes us human, she cautions: "Just finding a change in one protein gives us no idea of how it affects the whole animal." The human and chimp genomes are about 99.2% identical. In the most important bits of the genome, this figure rises to 99.5%. Yet Cargill and her colleagues believe that they have seen the fingerprint of evolution in these small DNA differences. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Evolution; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 4687 - Posted: 06.24.2010