Spinal injuries may be made much worse by a chemical chain reaction set off by even minor damage to nerves. As the nerves die, they trigger the release of chemicals which kill neighbouring cells. Scientists from Ohio State University in the US believe that preventing this reaction could reduce the damage suffered by spinal injury patients. Treatments could prevent long term disability in some patients, they told a neuroscience conference. The study took a detailed look at exactly what happens when someone suffers a spinal cord injury. At present, there is very little that medicine can offer to people even in the days following spinal injury which might reduce the damage. (C) BBC

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion; Apoptosis
Link ID: 4586 - Posted: 11.23.2003

Taking too many painkillers can damage some people's kidneys permanently, scientists claim. Overuse was defined as taking two doses of full strength aspirin or extra strong paracetamol every day. The risk only affects people who are susceptible - most people, including cardiovascular patients taking small doses of aspirin - are not at risk. But doctors told the American Society of Nephrology they had no way of spotting the few who are at risk. The researchers found that heavy use of aspirin or paracetamol - defined as 300 grams a year - was linked to a condition known as small, indented and calcified kidneys (SICK). The condition was detected in patients with irreversible kidney failure by carrying out computed tomography (CT) scans. (C) BBC

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 4585 - Posted: 11.23.2003

By HARRIET McBRYDE JOHNSON My father died when I was 2, and I lost my mother when I was 5.'' Throughout my childhood, that's what Grandmother says. She's a fine storyteller with rare gifts for gross delicacy and folksy pomposity, but she doesn't give the details, and we don't ask. To me, it's enough knowing that she's an orphan, like Heidi -- like Tarzan even! What else is worth knowing? Eventually our cousins tell us. When Grandmother was 5, her mother didn't die. She was placed in an asylum. There she lived until Grandmother was in her 20's. There she died. The news seems to answer some questions about Grandmother. Why does an independent thinker set such store on conventional behavior? Why did she marry a ridiculously steady Presbyterian? Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Movement Disorders
Link ID: 4584 - Posted: 11.23.2003

NewScientist.com news service Cambridge University has been granted permission to build a controversial new laboratory for conducting neuroscience research on primates. The centre is aimed at studying conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and stroke. The go-ahead, issued on Friday by John Prescott, the UK's deputy prime minister, was greeted with delight by scientists and doctors, but with anger by anti-vivisectionists. The proposed lab was the subject of a bitter public enquiry. Scientists argued that vital medical research cannot be done in any other way than by experiments on the brains of monkeys. Opponents disagreed, saying the work is unethical and that research on primates actually hinders rather than helps research into neurological disease (see New Scientist print edition, 23 November 2002). © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 4583 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Giving eyesight to the blind raises questions about how people see Bruce Bower One witheringly hot day last summer, a 10-year-old boy performed a few miracles at a hospital near Calcutta, India. For openers, he caught a balled-up piece of paper thrown to him. Then, he picked up paper clips and inserted them into a holder through a small opening. Looking determined, the boy proceeded to identify drawings of an elephant and other animals. Finally, he greeted all of his physicians and nurses, referring to each by name. Not impressed? These accomplishments sure looked miraculous to Pawan Sinha, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who was in Calcutta visiting the hospital. Sinha knew that the boy had had severe cataracts in both eyes since birth. He had grown up in a poor family, and the reason for his blindness went undiagnosed until he tripped and broke his leg at age 10. A physician treating the boy's leg instantly noticed the youngster's cataracts and arranged for free surgery. Five weeks later, the boy—a newcomer to the world of sight—dazzled Sinha with visual feats. It's not yet clear whether a child deprived of sight for many years can learn to see the world with all the subtlety and skill of a person who grew up with normal vision, however. Researchers are just beginning to piece together how the brain responds to blindness early in life and then how it reacts to the sudden unleashing of vision, however years or even decades later. Copyright ©2003 Science Service.

Keyword: Vision; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 4582 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — DNA studies on the personality of birds, which researchers suggest could reflect on the behavior of humans and other animals, reveal that mates with opposing personalities produce offspring with higher survival rates. The findings emerged from two papers released by biologists at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO). The papers, recently presented at Utrecht University, contain the first personality research ever to illustrate genetic structure and its resulting effects on survival. For the initial study, Kees van Oers used artificial selection to breed great tits (Parus major) with extreme personalities. Some of the birds were fast moving, aggressive risk takers. Others were more slow and cautious. Copyright © 2003 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 4581 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By GARDINER HARRIS Cialis, a drug for impotence made by Eli Lilly & Company and the Icos Corporation, was approved yesterday, adding a new competitor in a $1.74 billion annual market. Cialis joins Pfizer's Viagra, approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1998, and GlaxoSmithKline's Levitra, approved earlier this year. The company has said that clinical studies have shown that the effect of Cialis can last 24 to 36 hours - several times that of either Viagra or Levitra. The drug's absorption is unaffected by eating, the company says, whereas absorption of both Viagra and Levitra are impeded by rich meals. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4580 - Posted: 11.22.2003

By Pallab Ghosh People with a low sense of self worth are more likely to suffer from memory loss as they get older, say researchers. The study, presented at a conference at the Royal Society in London, also found that the brains of these people were more likely to shrink compared with those who have a high sense of self esteem. Dr Sonia Lupien, of McGill University in Montreal surveyed 92 senior citizens over 15 years and studied their brain scans. She found that the brains of those with low self-worth were up to a fifth smaller than those who felt good about themselves. These people also performed worse in memory and learning tests. Dr Lupien believes that if those with a negative mind set were taught to change the way they think they could reverse their mental decline. (C) BBC

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 4579 - Posted: 11.21.2003

Scientists have found differences in the brains of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. University of California Los Angeles researchers found some areas of the brains of the children were smaller, and but others had more grey matter. Other studies have suggested that ADHD is linked to abnormalities in areas of the brain which control attention. But the latest study suggests there are also structural changes in areas which control impulsive behaviour. The researchers say they were able to combine the latest scanning technology with computer analysis to provide more detailed information about the differences in the brains of ADHD children. ADHD is a serious behavioural disorder which experts estimate may affect up to 6% of children. (C) BBC

Keyword: ADHD
Link ID: 4578 - Posted: 11.21.2003

Drug-induced discovery sheds light on mental illness. HELEN R PILCHER A single molecule may underpin the psychotic symptoms of schizophrenia, a mouse study suggests. A better understanding of the roots of the disease and new antipsychotic medications may follow. Schizophrenia affects 24 million people worldwide. Sufferers experience disrupted thoughts and behaviour, and sometimes delusions. Its cause is uncertain, but faulty brain chemistry is thought to be key. Three main chemical messengers, called neurotransmitters, are implicated. Different researchers tend to favour one molecule the others as the disease's root cause. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 4577 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Violence awaits wandering males when they return home. BETSY MASON Amphibian Casanovas beware: the ladies aren't likely to take infidelity lying down. Male salamanders returning home after a night of disloyalty can expect a beating, a new study reveals. The finding has surprised behavioural researchers: most instances of infidelity punishment place females on the receiving end of the abuse. Female red-backed salamanders are no different, but they don't just take it — they dish it out too, finds behavioural ecologist Ethan Prosen of the University of Louisiana in Lafayette, who led the research1. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Aggression
Link ID: 4576 - Posted: 06.24.2010

OF COURSE, it is good to be polite. And, as a result, in most places these days it is impossible to know what someone is actually thinking when he meets or works with someone of another race. Politeness makes it unacceptable to express prejudice, even if those attitudes are actually there. How hard do people work to overcome a prejudice that they feel but are not allowed to express? That is the question Jennifer Richeson, of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, attempts to answer in this month's Nature Neuroscience. In a study carried out earlier this year, she and her colleagues found that racially biased people take longer to perform tasks that require a conscious effort to control their racial responses and actions. This effort is known as cognitive control. The researchers suspected, as a result of this earlier study, that there was a physical mechanism, which they dubbed resource depletion, underlying this lag in performance. In their latest paper, they think they have proved this theory. The idea behind the theory of resource depletion is that the effort expended on suppressing prejudice depletes the ability to use cognitive control in subsequent tasks. The researchers recruited 30 white students as volunteers, and attempted to identify their racial attitudes using the Implicit Association Test (IAT). During an IAT , volunteers match positive and negative words such as “health”, “beauty”, and “ugly”, with names traditionally associated, at least in the United States, with black (such as Latisha and Tyrone) or white (Nancy and Greg) Americans. The IAT measures response times to these uncomfortable questions, and assigns higher levels of racial bias to white participants who are slower and less accurate in matching black names to positive attributes, and vice versa. The results of the IAT were used as a baseline from which to assess each volunteer's underlying prejudice. Copyright © The Economist Newspaper

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 4575 - Posted: 06.24.2010

In a study conducted in rats, scientists have determined that drugs that block the action of a group of DNA-repair enzymes can protect brain cells from damage triggered by an overdose of insulin. If these drugs are shown to produce the same effect in humans, they could become the first tool available for prevention of brain damage that can result from hypoglycemic shock, also known as insulin shock, in patients with diabetes. The study was conducted by scientists at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center (SFVAMC) and appears in the November 19 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. The drugs, PARP inhibitors, have already been shown to protect human heart and brain cells from damage following heart attack and stroke, and are currently approved for testing in phase-2 clinical trials for victims of heart attack. "Every hospital emergency department sees one or more cases of hypoglycemic coma each year," says Raymond Swanson, MD, chief of Neurology Service at SFVAMC and a professor in the Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF.) "Up to this point, we don't have any way to treat these patients except to give them glucose, which pulls them out of insulin shock, but doesn't do anything to stop the cell death process that is triggered by severe hypoglycemia. PARP inhibitors rescue neurons [brain cells] which would otherwise go on to die even though blood glucose is restored."

Keyword: Apoptosis
Link ID: 4574 - Posted: 11.21.2003

Findings may lead to new drug targets for treating schizophrenia A mouse study reported in this week's Science magazine shows that three drugs, each acting on a different chemical transmitter in the brain, all produce the same schizophrenia-like symptoms by acting on a single "master molecule" in the brain. The findings, reported by researchers at Rockefeller University with collaboration from three pharmaceutical and biotech companies, provides, for the first time, a cellular model detailing how this crucial protein, known as DARPP-32, interacts with multiple neurotransmitter systems to produce behavior. The scientists demonstrate that DARPP-32 acts like the thin neck in an hourglass, through which all signals taken into a nerve cell must pass and be processed, producing a wide variety of biochemical reactions. In this case, three different drugs of abuse, LSD, PCP ("angel dust") and amphetamine, work on three different neurotransmitters, serotonin, glutamate, and dopamine, respectively. All three drugs, which are classified as psychotomimetics or psychostimulants, are processed within the DARPP-32 hourglass neck through the same pathway, thus producing very similar physiological symptoms.

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 4573 - Posted: 11.21.2003

NIH-funded research delves into long term effects of anabolic steroid use BOSTON, Mass. – With the recent revelations about steroid use in Major League Baseball and the bust last week of several Oakland Raiders players for drug abuse, Northeastern University psychology professor Richard Melloni , who studies the link between steroid use and aggression, has recently found evidence that use of anabolic steroids may have long-term effects on players’ behavior and aggression levels well after they stop abusing these performance enhancing drugs. With funding from the NIH (recently extended through 2008), Melloni and doctoral student Jill Grimes have been studying how steroids used during adolescence may permanently alter the brain's ability to produce serotonin. In their experiments, adolescent Syrian hamsters - given their similar brain circuitry to human adolescents – were administered doses of anabolic steroids and then measured for aggressiveness over certain periods of time. The researchers initially hypothesized that steroid use during adolescence might permanently alter the brain's chemistry and a person's tendency toward aggression long after use has stopped. Their most recent findings, published this week in Hormones and Behavior , enabled them to confirm this hypothesis and conclude that there is indeed a lengthy price – namely long-term aggression – to pay for drug abuse even after the ingestion of steroids ceases.

Keyword: Aggression; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 4572 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The word 'capsaicin' doesn't exactly roll over the tongue easily, but this is especially appropriate since it is the name of the chemical that makes peppers hot and gives a surprisingly wide variety of other products a real bite. Chemical & Engineering News, the newsmagazine published by the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, in its Nov. 3 issue traces the pepper family history and explains why the vegetable can produce a fast burn. Capsaicin is an extremely powerful and stable alkaloid produced as a crystal by glands at the junction of the pepper's placenta and pod walls, according to Dave DeWitt, known as the "Pope of Pepper" and publisher of Fiery Foods & BBQ magazine. The chemical is found only in chili peppers. Copyright © 1995-2003 ScienceDaily Magazine

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 4571 - Posted: 06.24.2010

As you sit down to turkey and everything else this Thanksgiving, you just might like to know there may soon be a way to fool your stomach into feeling like you just ate a big meal. As this ScienCentral News video reports, it's all thanks to a team of researchers and a natural hormone. Thanksgiving inaugurates the unofficial "Season of Eating" for many Americans. But with obesity reaching epidemic proportions, researchers are working to find ways to help fight the battle of the bulge. "In the USA, 5,000 Americans die prematurely each and every week from the effects of excess adiposity (a synonym for obesity)," says Steve Bloom, a researcher at Hammersmith Hospital and professor at Imperial College, London. "This is a very large number of premature deaths, and it's actually a major public health disaster for North America, particularly because it also affects people's happiness and way of life. So, given that major medical problem, and the complete absence of any very effective treatments other than major surgery, the pressure's on to try and find something that's both safe and effective." © ScienCentral, 2000-2003.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 4570 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Exercise is definitely an important part of a healthy lifestyle. But as this ScienCentral News video reports, researchers are finding that too much exercise may hinder learning and memory. We all know that exercise is good for us. But can there be too much of a good thing? Scientists have known for a while that exercise helps your brain. Justin Rhodes, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of Behavioral Neuroscience at Oregon Health & Science University's School of Medicine and at the Veterans Administration Medical Cente r in Portland, Oregon, studied the effects of exercise on brain cells, or neurons, in mice. "When a mouse is running on a treadmill, or running on a wheel, you get increased production of a chemical in an area of the brain that plays a role in learning and memory," says Rhodes. "What this brain chemical does is it strengthens connections in the brain and it protects neurons, and it increases their survival. And along with that, you get increased growth of new neurons." © ScienCentral, 2000-2003.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 4569 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A study published today in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute* provides the latest evidence that investing in state tobacco control programs can reduce smoking rates. In this evaluation of the American Stop Smoking Intervention Study (ASSIST), the authors found that states that were part of the ASSIST intervention program showed a greater reduction in smoking prevalence (the number of people who smoke) than non-ASSIST states. The study also found that states with stronger tobacco control policies and greater ability to implement tobacco control programs experienced larger reductions in smoking. At the time of the study, ASSIST was the largest federally funded demonstration project to help states develop effective strategies to reduce smoking. In 1991, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, provided funds to 17 state health departments** and forged a partnership with the American Cancer Society to undertake the study. The ASSIST evaluation is the most comprehensive evaluation ever conducted on a large, multi-state tobacco control study. The goal of ASSIST was to change the social, cultural, economic and environmental factors that promote smoking by utilizing four policy strategies: promoting smoke-free environments; countering tobacco advertising and promotion; limiting youths' access to tobacco products; and raising excise taxes to increase the price of tobacco products. The interventions were developed and implemented by networks of state and local tobacco control coalitions.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 4568 - Posted: 11.20.2003

A hand-held device designed to identify drivers impaired by drugs, alcohol or excessive tiredness, is being evaluated by the British police. The device is intended to deliver a quick yes or no verdict on whether a person is in a fit state to drive and works by assessing the driver's behaviour, rather than testing for particular substances. It is the first of its kind to be tested by police anywhere in the world. The "impairment detector" is still in the early stages of development, but the Police Scientific Development Branch (PSDB) in St Albans, Hertfordshire, is studying results from a prototype to decide whether to take the project further. If it gets the go-ahead, at least two years of testing will be needed before the detector is ready for the streets. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 4567 - Posted: 06.24.2010