A highly anticipated report from the National Academy of Sciences on underage drinking is due out soon, and groups on all sides of the issue are ready to debate its contents. While the report itself is still secret, much of the science is not. This ScienCentral report focuses on one issue sure to be examined—the impact of alcohol on young drinkers' brains. When people consume a lot of alcohol, "the parts of the brain that are very important in things like judgment, decision making, impulse control, and memory formation are hit pretty hard,” according to Aaron White, assistant research professor of psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center and a research psychologist at the Durham Veterans Administration Medical Center. And since young brains are still developing, this affects them more than adults. “A lot of young people drink as much as they can and as quickly as they can, and that kind of drinking pattern,” he says, “shuts down cells in the learning and memory part of the brain, called the hippocampus, causing a blackout." White explains that a blackout is not the same as passing out. “We know that if you shut these cells off you lose the ability to form new memories for things like facts and events, like what you did last night.” So it's potentially a very dangerous time for young people because they could do all kinds of things during a blackout but have no memory of it when they wake up the next morning. © ScienCentral, 2000-2003.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 4203 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Mice with virtually identical genes can grow into quite different-looking animals—fat and yellow, or lean and brown—depending on what their mothers ate during pregnancy. As this ScienCentral News video reports, researchers are studying a twist to heredity that goes beyond our genes. You Are What Your Mother Eats For years, scientists have told us that our genes contain all the information about how we'll look, and even to some extent, how healthy we'll be. But Randy Jirtle, assistant professor of radiation oncology at Duke University Medical Center, says our parents’ diets may also shape us. Jirtle and his coworkers gave pregnant mice some common dietary supplements that you can buy in any health-food store: folic acid, vitamin B12, betaine and choline . Then they compared the offspring of the mice that were fed the supplements with the offspring of mice that were not given supplements. Although the mouse pups looked the same when they were born, they developed in very different ways. © ScienCentral, 2000-2003

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Obesity
Link ID: 4202 - Posted: 06.24.2010

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue University biologists have learned how to control the development of stem cells in the inner ears of embryonic chickens, a discovery which could potentially improve the ability to treat human diseases that cause deafness and vertigo. By introducing new genes into the cell nuclei, researchers instructed the embryonic cells to develop into different adult cells than they would have ordinarily. Instead of forming the tiny hairs that the inner ear uses to detect sound waves, the stem cells matured into tissue with different kind of hairs – the sort used to keep balance. This ability to guide the choice of cell types could expand researchers' knowledge of the inner ear and its disorders. "We've essentially switched the fate of these cells," said Donna Fekete (pronounced FEH-ka-tee), associate professor of biology in Purdue's School of Science. "We now know at least one gene that determines what these embryonic ear cells will eventually become. As a result, we can control the outcome ourselves using gene transduction. Because so many people suffer from deafness later in life, we hope this research will yield treatments for them down the line."

Keyword: Hearing; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 4201 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Study: Poor More Affected by Environment By Rick Weiss, Washington Post Staff Writer Back-to-school pop quiz: Why do poor children, and especially black poor children, score lower on average than their middle-class and white counterparts on IQ tests and other measures of cognitive performance? It is an old and politically sensitive question, and one that has long fueled claims of racism. As highlighted in the controversial 1994 book "The Bell Curve," studies have repeatedly found that people's genes -- and not their environment -- explain most of the differences in IQ among individuals. That has led a few scholars to advance the hotly disputed notion that minorities' lower scores are evidence of genetic inferiority. Now a groundbreaking study of the interaction among genes, environment and IQ finds that the influence of genes on intelligence is dependent on class. Genes do explain the vast majority of IQ differences among children in wealthier families, the new work shows. But environmental factors -- not genetic deficits -- explain IQ differences among poor minorities. © 2003 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Genes & Behavior; Intelligence
Link ID: 4200 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Fish are socially intelligent creatures who do not deserve their reputation as the dim-wits of the animal kingdom, according to a group of leading scientists. Rather than simply being instinct-driven, the group says fish are cunning, manipulative and even cultured. The three experts from the universities of Edinburgh, St Andrews and Leeds said there had been huge changes in science's understanding of the psychological and mental abilities of fish in the last few years. Writing in the journal Fish and Fisheries, biologists Calum Brown, Keven Laland and Jens Krause said fish were now seen as highly intelligent creatures. They said: "Gone (or at least obsolete) is the image of fish as drudging and dim-witted pea-brains, driven largely by 'instinct',' with what little behavioural flexibility they possess being severely hampered by an infamous 'three-second memory'. (C) BBC

Keyword: Intelligence; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4199 - Posted: 09.02.2003

By ERICA GOODE Researchers reported yesterday that there may be a link between some newer drugs prescribed for schizophrenia and a dangerous inflammation of the pancreas. The study, which looked at patients taking any of four antipsychotic drugs, examined all cases of pancreatitis that were reported to the Food and Drug Administration or written up in medical journals between January 1981 and February 2002. It found that more cases were associated with three newer drugs than with an older generation drug. Of the 192 cases of pancreatitis the researchers found, 72 occurred in patients taking Clozaril, made by Novartis , 62 in patients taking Zyprexa, made by Eli Lilly, and 31 in patients taking Risperdal, made by Jannsen Pharmaceutica. These drugs are members of the newer generation of antipsychotics known as atypicals. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 4198 - Posted: 09.02.2003

By HOWARD MARKEL As parents pack their children off to college this week, they would be wise to add one more piece of advice to protect the health of their offspring: make sure to get eight or more hours of sleep every night. Like many college students, Jenny Waller, 21, is something of a night owl. In her first weeks at the University of Michigan a few years ago, Miss Waller rarely went to bed before 3 or 4 in the morning. "In college," she said, "your mom isn't there to tell you to go to bed, and for me, things only got worse. Within a month, I was staying up all night, going to bed at 9 a.m. and pretty much missing all of my classes. Many nights I would sit with my textbooks, but I couldn't concentrate. I wouldn't let myself get to bed until I finished the work. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep; Depression
Link ID: 4197 - Posted: 09.02.2003

By ERICA GOODE Most people accept the idea that stress and depression chip away at the body's natural ability to fight off disease. But many medical scientists have remained skeptical that the mind can exert such a direct influence over the immune system. In recent years, however, evidence has accumulated that psychology can indeed affect biology. Studies have found, for example, that people who suffer from depression are at higher risk for heart disease and other illnesses. Other research has shown that wounds take longer to heal in women who care for patients with Alzheimer's disease than in other women who are not similarly stressed. And people under stress have been found to be more susceptible to colds and flu, and to have more severe symptoms after they fall ill. Now a new study adds another piece to the puzzle. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin are reporting today that the activation of brain regions associated with negative emotions appears to weaken people's immune response to a flu vaccine. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 4196 - Posted: 09.02.2003

MADISON - Staying healthy may involve more than washing hands or keeping a positive attitude. According to a new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, it also may involve a particular pattern of brain activity. By monitoring activity levels in the human brain's prefrontal cortex, the researchers demonstrate for the first time that people who have more activity in the left side of this area also have a stronger immune response against disease. The findings, soon to be published in the online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, pinpoint one of the mechanisms underlying the link between mental and physical well-being. Numerous scientific studies show that keeping a positive attitude can keep a person healthy, says Richard Davidson, a UW-Madison neuroscientist and senior author of the paper. But he adds that the reasons why this connection exists are poorly understood.

Keyword: Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 4195 - Posted: 09.02.2003

He found himself sobbing uncontrollably, unable to work a sandwich dispenser and consumed by guilt. Clinical psychologist Richard Bentall had taken a psychiatric drug as part of an experiment. Add in personal tragedy and a spell of depression, and he could never see mental illness the same way again. Now he thinks diagnostic labels have no more predictive power than star signs and that plenty of people can live happily with severe psychotic symptoms. And as he told Liz Else, the people doing the suffering should have power restored to them Saying psychiatry is no better than astrology is a bit strong, isn't it? No. I've tried to show in my book that there is truckloads of research that shows that these categories are meaningless. They are remarkably similar to star signs because people think that star signs say something about them and about what will happen in the future. They think the same with psychiatric diagnoses, which don't predict the course of the illness, which treatments will work, or say anything about aetiology. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Depression; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 4194 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By VIRGINIA POSTREL The Food and Drug Administration recently approved a new use for biosynthesized human growth hormone: treating unusually short children who don't have any other known disorder. In clinical studies, the drug, which is called Humatrope and made by Eli Lilly & Company, added several inches to kids' eventual height without producing any significant health risks. Humatrope, in other words, met the regulatory tests for safety and efficacy. But bioethicists greeted the decision with protests. ''We will start to treat the normal as a disease,'' Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania told The Washington Post , adding that ''whenever you take people on the low end of a distribution curve and say they have a disorder, you're starting down a slippery slope.'' It does seem ridiculous to treat otherwise healthy short people as disabled. A man who is 5-foot-3 or a woman who is 4-foot-11 is hardly in the same position as someone who can't walk or see. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 4193 - Posted: 09.02.2003

Boys with eating disorders may often be misdiagnosed by doctors, say experts surveyed by the BBC. Disorders such as anorexia are much more common in girls - only one in ten diagnosed cases are in boys. Almost half of all child mental health experts asked by the BBC said they felt that more boys were coming forward with the problem. However, they said that GPs and parents were missing vital clues that boys had developed an eating disorder. The BBC asked 53 child and adolescent mental health services and children's wards across the UK about the issue. Some said that they had seen boys as young as eight or nine with the condition. Almost three quarters of those surveyed said that there was probably under-diagnosis of eating disorders in males. (C) BBC

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 4192 - Posted: 08.30.2003

It is an illusion that has bedazzled people since Aristotle described it 2000 years ago. If you look at a waterfall for a short time, then look at the bank beside it, the bank will appear to drift upwards. Now an experiment that monitors brain activity has explained how the "waterfall effect" arises. It confirms a hypothesis proposed in the 19th century by the German psychologist Sigmund Exner. He said the waterfall illusion was caused by neurons tuned to opposite directions of motion. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 4191 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Artificial intelligence meets good old-fashioned human thought Bruce Bower When Kenneth M. Ford considers the future of artificial intelligence, he doesn't envision legions of cunning robots running the world. Nor does he have high hopes for other much-touted AI prospects—among them, machines with the mental moxie to ponder their own existence and tiny computer-linked devices implanted in people's bodies. When Ford thinks of the future of artificial intelligence, two words come to his mind: cognitive prostheses. It's not a term that trips off the tongue. However, the concept behind the words inspires the work of the more than 50 scientists affiliated with the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) that Ford directs at the University of West Florida in Pensacola. In short, a cognitive prosthesis is a computational tool that amplifies or extends a person's thought and perception, much as eyeglasses are prostheses that improve vision. The difference, says Ford, is that a cognitive prosthesis magnifies strengths in human intellect rather than corrects presumed deficiencies in it. Cognitive prostheses, therefore, are more like binoculars than eyeglasses. Current IHMC projects include an airplane-cockpit display that shows critical information in a visually intuitive format rather than on standard gauges; software that enables people to construct maps of what's known about various topics, for use in teaching, business, and Web site design; and a computer system that identifies people's daily behavior patterns as they go about their jobs and simulates ways to organize those practices more effectively. Copyright ©2003 Science Service

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 4190 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Bruce Bower For the first time, scientists have identified a gene that appears to influence the development of at least some cases of dyslexia. This learning disorder is characterized by difficulties in perceiving sounds within words, spelling and reading problems, and troubles with written and oral expression. It's estimated that dyslexia affects at least 1 in 25 people. Although scientists are investigating dyslexia's suspected neural roots (SN: 5/24/03, p. 324: http://www.sciencenews.org/20030524/fob4.asp), the condition's causes remain unknown. If confirmed in further studies, the new genetic finding represents a major step forward for dyslexia researchers. Until now, investigators have only been able to link dyslexia to alterations along stretches of DNA containing tens or hundreds of genes. The most prominent of these genetic segments are located on chromosomes 6 and 15. Copyright ©2003 Science Service.

Keyword: Dyslexia; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 4189 - Posted: 06.24.2010

It's bad enough to know you could pass on a genetic form of mental retardation to your children. But carriers of a Fragile X syndrome "premutation" have something else to worry about: They're at higher risk of neuromuscular degeneration. Now a new study explains why. People with Fragile X syndrome--the most common inherited type of mental retardation--lack a protein called FMR1 because the gene for FMR1 is laden with extra DNA. The letters CGG repeat themselves more than 200 times, compared to fewer than 60 repeats in normal people. Premutation carriers have intermediate numbers of repeats. Clinicians have recently discovered that some of these people develop muscle tremors that worsen with age, similar to individuals with neuromuscular disorders. But doctors don't understand why. Stephen Warren of Emory University in Atlanta and colleagues suspected that the neurodegeneration is caused by messenger RNA (mRNA) that serves as the template for the protein. They noted that muscle nerves don't degenerate in Fragile X patients, whose FMR1 gene is so long that mRNA is never even made. Carriers, however, make mRNA for FMR1 that carries between 60 and 200 repeats of CGG, but don't make the protein. To determine whether the premutation carriers' mRNA wreaks havoc on neurons, Warren's team turned to the fruit fly retina, which many researchers use to model degenerating nerves. Copyright © 2003 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 4188 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Women who take the drug Ecstasy in their first trimester of pregnancy may be putting their unborn child at risk for brain damage, according to a study published in the September issue of the journal Neurotoxicity and Teratology. Jack W. Lipton, PhD, a neuroscientist at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago, demonstrated that fetal exposure in rats to the drug Ecstasy during a period analogous to the first trimester in humans causes changes in the young rat's brain chemistry and behavior. The study was funded in part by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Ecstasy also is known as MDMA or 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine. "The limited data that exist suggest that women who use Ecstasy stop taking it when they learn they are pregnant," says Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of the NIDA. "But many of the animal studies that linked this drug to neurological changes and learning impairments were conducted in situations analogous to the third trimester in humans. Thus, this study sought to investigate a more true-to-life situation by looking at neurobiological changes caused by Ecstasy early in pregnancy."

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 4187 - Posted: 08.30.2003

SULTAN, Wash. - Days after 10,000 mink were released from a farm in southern Snohomish County, hundreds of the animals not yet captured have converged on local farms in search of food. The animals had killed at least 25 exotic birds and attacked other livestock in the area. "Over half our livestock was shredded. Murdered. Eaten alive," said Jeff Weaver, who discovered the dead birds on his farm Thursday. "These are not like regular farm animals. They're our pets." Copyright © 2003 The Associated Press. All rights Copyright © 2003 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 4186 - Posted: 06.24.2010

ST. PAUL, MN – The majority of epilepsy patients who are seizure-free for the first year after surgery will have a favorable long-term outcome, according to a study in the August 26 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study examined 175 patients with intractable epilepsy (when the condition is not relieved by medication) who had surgery that removed a small portion of the brain identified as a region involved in seizure generation, and who were seizure-free for the first year following surgery. Researchers followed up with the patients for an average of more than eight years, and found that 63 percent never relapsed (stayed seizure-free). “Little is known about seizure recurrence in patients five, 10, or 20 years after surgery, and one year isn’t enough to follow up a patient who had surgery,” said study author and neurologist Susan S. Spencer, MD, of the Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn. “The number of patients who didn’t relapse in this study was larger than we thought it would be.”

Keyword: Epilepsy
Link ID: 4185 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By MEREDITH F. SMALL Humans and apes separated about six million years ago, and ever since then humans have been careering down an evolutionary path all their own. Lucky for us, bits of bones dropped along the way became fossilized, and these remains tell much about the physical evolution of the creatures that eventually became modern humans. Harder to follow is the path of our behavior. No one really knows what early humans acted like, who they interacted with or what kind of social groups they preferred, and so the lifestyle of our ancient ancestors is only a guess. This part of our history is so up for grabs that there is lots of room for speculation by polymaths curious enough to read the mountain of anthropological literature and piece together a credible story of human behavioral evolution. And why not? Anthropology has a long tradition of letting others look at the data. Authors like Robert Ardrey, Elaine Morgan, Carl Sagan and Jared Diamond, among many others, have all attempted to figure out where we came from and how we did it. Because no one could possibly be right — we have no film from the Pleistocene and no written records of our ancient past to confirm or refute anything anyone says — each account has merit and is worthy of discussion. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Evolution; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4184 - Posted: 06.24.2010