Bird parents typically raise their young in seemingly peaceful cooperation and were therefore seen as reflecting the ideal of monogamous partnership. This view has changed dramatically over the last decade: since molecular ‘fingerprinting’ techniques became available, behavioural ecologists have routinely used paternity analyses to study mating systems. We now know that unfaithful behaviour – referred to as extra-pair copulations – is more the rule than the exception, in particular in socially monogamous songbirds. A team of scientists from the Max Planck Research Centre for Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany, and from the Zoological Museum in Oslo, Norway, now show the evolutionary advantages of this behaviour, using data from a long term study on the blue tit, a small hole-nesting songbird (Nature, October 16 2003). Through extra-pair copulations with distantly breeding males, females produce offspring that are more outbred and therefore genetically more diverse, compared to their half-siblings sired by the social father. Monogamy is rare among animals. Even species that form socially monogamous pairs of one male and one female are often not monogamous in the strict sense. Males and females commonly copulate with more than one partner during a single reproductive event. Therefore, young raised in the same brood are often sired by different males. The evolutionary advantage of unfaithful behaviour is obvious for males: the clutch- or litter size of the partner limits the maximum number of offspring that can be produced. Extra-pair copulations with other females provide the only opportunity for a male to sire additional young. For females, the significance of promiscuity is less obvious. If evolution only favours high numbers of offspring, then females would not benefit from mating with multiple males. However, evolutionary biologists have convincingly shown that the genetic quality of the young has a crucial influence on their subsequent survival and reproductive success. Consequently, not only the quantity, but also the genetic quality of the progeny determines how successfully an individual will spread its genes in future generations.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4386 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Alzheimer's disease is the single most common cause of dementia, a chronically progressive brain condition that impairs intellect and behavior to the point where customary activities of daily living become compromised. Over 4 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease. Its high prevalence may lead people to believe that dementia is always due to Alzheimer's disease and that memory loss is a feature of all dementias. However, an article by Alzheimer's disease expert M.-Marsel Mesulam, M.D., in the Oct. 16 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine reports that nearly a quarter of all dementias, especially those of presenile onset, may be caused by diseases other than Alzheimer's disease and that some of these so-called atypical dementias involve cognitive abnormalities in areas other than memory. Mesulam is Ruth and Evelyn Dunbar Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and professor of neurology at the Feinberg School of Medicine and director of the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center at Northwestern University.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 4385 - Posted: 10.17.2003

By Lori Valigra | Special to The Christian Science Monitor Ask any aquarium curator, and you'll discover just how much an octopus likes to explore its environment. A master escape artist whose soft body can contort itself through the smallest of openings, the octopus is the brainiest of animals without backbones, and it has keen eyesight. Those attributes attracted Albert Titus, a University of Buffalo professor, to study how an octopus sees, and to mimic that structure and function in a silicon chip called the o-retina. His goal is to create electronic vision systems that could be used in robots to explore the oceans, outer space, and harsh environments. Professor Titus and his colleagues developed an experimental version of the o-retina chip, which is about the size of a narrow Post-it Note. The chip acts as a retina, a sensory membrane in the eye that distills relevant visual information to be sent to the brain. "We'd like to be able to explore new things in a more intelligent way, to have a vision system that perceives its environment and makes decisions without a human always telling it what to do," says Titus. One big challenge is figuring out how the brain uses information to understand and reconstitute an image, and then translating that process onto a chip. The octopus retina provides a simple, yet elegant visual system which, Titus says, is relatively easy to simulate in silicon. Copyright © 2003 The Christian Science Monitor.

Keyword: Vision; Evolution
Link ID: 4384 - Posted: 06.24.2010

At birth, a child's brain is a work in progress. The initial framework with the capacity for joy, happiness, shyness, and fear is laid down in development, determined by "nature" or the genetic blueprints from the parents. From there, the structure of the brain is shaped by nurture and early experience. Experience can enhance or reduce the mental and emotional capacities in the framework. ©Waukon Standard 2003

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 4383 - Posted: 06.24.2010

No one is better at navigation than taxi drivers. Now neuroscientists are turning people into virtual cab drivers to learn how our brains navigate. "Going places is one of the most fundamental of human activities," says Itzhak Fried, professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California Los Angeles and professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute."We are talking about a memory system. We learn our environment, so that when we have to get from one place to another, we use some knowledge or some map which we have created in our own brain, so that we can do it over and over again, probably with increasing efficiency. And that map is going to be based on where you are at any particular point in time, what you see at any particular point in time, and what you are actually looking for." The research team—which included Fried, Michael Kahana, associate professor of cognitive neuroscience and director of the Computational Memory Lab at Brandeis University, and Brandeis University graduate student Arne Ekstrom—studied seven epilepsy patients who had electrodes placed inside their brains for another study, one that would allow doctors to focus on the source of their seizures. Since the electrodes were already there, the patients could be tested for other things as well. So the scientists had them play a video game in which they acted as virtual taxi drivers, taking virtual passengers to various locations and stores in a virtual city. © ScienCentral, 2000-2003.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 4382 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By LINDA GREENHOUSE WASHINGTON, - The Supreme Court, in a silent rebuff on Tuesday to federal policy on medical marijuana, let stand an appeals court ruling that doctors may not be investigated, threatened or punished by federal regulators for recommending marijuana as a medical treatment for their patients. As a result, doctors in California and six other Western states where voters or legislators have approved marijuana for medical uses like pain relief may now discuss it freely with their patients without fear of jeopardizing their federal licenses to prescribe drugs. Advocates of medical marijuana greeted the court's action as a significant and surprising victory. In 1996, immediately after California voters approved a medical marijuana initiative known as the Compassionate Use Act, the Clinton administration warned doctors that recommending marijuana ``will lead to administrative action by the Drug Enforcement Administration to revoke the practitioner's registration.'' The Bush administration carried the policy forward and appealed the ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last October that the federal policy violated both the free speech rights of doctors and the ``principles of federalism.'' Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 4381 - Posted: 10.15.2003

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms include inattention, motor hyperactivity and impulsiveness. Roughly half of the adults who report ADHD symptoms also report a co-existing substance-abuse disorder. New findings published in the October issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research have identified a distinct phenotype or "profile" of individuals with co-existing ADHD and alcoholism. Although prior studies have suggested a genetic commonality of ADHD and alcoholism, the study found no significant contribution of two specific candidate genes, the promoter polymorphism of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTT) and the 5-HT2c receptor Cys23Ser polymorphism. "Our results indicate that individuals with persisting ADHD symptoms in adulthood seem to be at high risk of developing an alcohol-use disorder," said Monika Johann, medical doctor and research associate at the University of Regensburg and first author of the study. "Moreover, there is evidence for a highly increased severity of alcohol dependence in subjects with ADHD."

Keyword: Drug Abuse; ADHD
Link ID: 4380 - Posted: 10.15.2003

Contrary to what your music teacher told you, it does not take decades of piano practice to learn to play phrases on the piano without looking at your fingers. A brain map linking finger movements with particular notes begins to form within minutes of starting training, according to research published this week in BMC Neuroscience. Recent brain imaging studies of professional musicians have demonstrated that silent tapping of musical phrases can stimulate auditory areas of the cortex and hearing music can stimulate areas of the motor cortex. Moreover, according to anecdotal evidence, hearing music can cause pianists to move their fingers involuntarily. To find out how fast links between these two brain areas could be formed Marc Bangert and Eckart Altenmüller, from the Institute of Music Physiology and Musicians' Medicine in Hanover, examined the effects on the brain of taking up a musical instrument from scratch. Their results showed that patterns of brain activity when listening to music or silently tapping a keyboard could be altered after just 20 minutes of piano practice. These changes were enhanced after five weeks of training.

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 4379 - Posted: 10.15.2003

By Kathleen Fackelmann, USA Today "King Lear": Alzheimer’s disease At the opening of this play, the once-mighty King Lear divides his kingdom in a way that seems to defy logic, a move that might be seen as the subtle onset of Alzheimer’s, a disease that afflicts 4.5 million Americans today. As the play unfolds, Lear’s once effective decision-making starts to deteriorate, and he experiences flares of strong emotion, key signs of Alzheimer’s. Shakespeare wrote about the aging King Lear long before scientists had identified the destruction of brain tissue that causes symptoms of the disease. Yet Lear often looks like a classic Alzheimer’s patient. "Richard III": Sociopathic disorder In this play, Richard III schemes to usurp the crown and feels no guilt for his immoral actions. People have long been fascinated by the mind of an evil person, and Richard III gives us a chilling portrait of a sociopath -- a man who seemingly kills not for revenge or out of hatred, but just for sport. Recent scientific findings suggest that damage to certain parts of the brain involved in judgment can sometimes lead to such behavior. "Hamlet": Depression Copyright © 2003 The Desert Sun

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 4378 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By DAVID BERREBY AUSTIN, Tex. — Ambition or love? Freedom or security? Perfect job here or perfect mate in Utah? Life forces painful choices on Dr. Michael J. Ryan's colleagues, but it is even harder on his research subject, the male túngara frog: the more sex it gets, the surer it is to be eaten. Dr. Ryan, who leads the integrative biology section at the University of Texas, is best known for work on the túngara, but he ponders other animals that live between a rock and a hard place: an all-female species of fish that clones itself but must mate with an alien male to do it; tiny salamanders with cells too big for their body plans; birds that must feed the chicks of another kind of bird to support their offspring. Biologists should learn from life's existential quandaries, he says, but many do not. Instead, they sweep the difficulties under the rug of "adaptationism," the notion that everything about an animal's body and behavior has been honed to enhance its "fitness" or chance of passing on genes. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Evolution; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4377 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Discovery shows power of mouse genome to identify human genes for rare genetic diseases ANN ARBOR, MI – In a small town on Grand Cayman Island in the Caribbean, people are living with a serious neurological disorder, called Cayman ataxia, found nowhere else in the world. People born with this rare, inherited condition have poor muscle coordination, some degree of mental retardation, uncontrollable head and eye movements and difficulty speaking or walking. Now, in a discovery that reinforces the importance of the mouse to human genetics, scientists at the University of Michigan Medical School have discovered two mutations in a gene called ATCAY, which appear to be responsible for Cayman ataxia in humans and for similar neurological disorders in mice.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior; Movement Disorders
Link ID: 4376 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Some 200,000 people live with partial or nearly total permanent paralysis in the United States, with spinal cord injuries adding 11,000 new cases each year. Most research aimed at recovering motor function has focused on repairing damaged nerve fibers, which has succeeded in restoring limited movement in animal experiments. But regenerating nerves and restoring complex motor behavior in humans are far more difficult, prompting researchers to explore alternatives to spinal cord rehabilitation. One promising approach involves circumventing neuronal damage by establishing connections between healthy areas of the brain and virtual devices, called brain–machine interfaces (BMIs), programmed to transform neural impulses into signals that can control a robotic device. While experiments have shown that animals using these artificial actuators can learn to adjust their brain activity to move robot arms, many issues remain unresolved, including what type of brain signal would provide the most appropriate inputs to program these machines. Link: http://www.plos.org/downloads/plbi-01-02-carmena.pdf

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 4375 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Findings shed light on the evolution of human cognition, the capacity for long lifespan and the potential for neurodegenerative disease ATLANTA -- A research team from the Salk Institute, the Yerkes National Primate Research Center of Emory University and the University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA), has identified genes in the cerebral cortex that differ in levels of activity between humans and nonhuman primates, including chimpanzees and rhesus monkeys. These findings, which appear in the online journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may provide essential clues to the unusual cognitive abilities of humans. They also may help researchers understand why humans have a longer lifespan than other primate species and yet are so vulnerable to age-related, neurodegenerative diseases. Because the DNA sequences of humans are so similar to those of chimpanzees, scientists have long speculated that differences in the activity levels of particular genes, otherwise known as gene expression, and, as a result, the amounts of particular proteins cells produce, are what distinguish humans from chimpanzees. The recent sequencing of the human genome has led to the development of "gene chips" that enable researches to examine the expression levels of thousands of genes at a time as well as compare expression levels in different species. Using gene chips to compare samples of the cerebral cortex of humans, chimpanzees and rhesus monkeys, the research team at the Salk, the Yerkes Center and UCLA identified 91 genes that are expressed in different amounts in humans compared to the other primate species. Upon further study, the team observed 83 of these genes showed higher levels of activity in humans, and as a result, regulated neural activity.

Keyword: Evolution; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 4374 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Sarah-Kate Templeton, Health Editor MOST patients given “lobotomies” at a Scottish hospital made a remarkable recovery, according to the first report into the outcome of their treatment. The patients suffered from severe depression and many had been in hospital for years. But after the controversial operation, called neurosurgery for mental disorder (NMD), eight of the 14 patients treated could leave hospital and live on their own. Details of the patients’ dramatic improvement come as British psychiatrists have called for a moratorium on the treatment. Professor Keith Matthews, a consultant psychiatrist and director of the Dundee Neurosurgery for Mental Disorder Programme at Ninewells, said: “Some of these people had not left hospital for between three and seven years. Often they were in intensive care and needed nurses with them all the time. They are now living independently. Even better, they are out and about and some of them are picking up their careers. Some people do extremely well.” Matthews added that while it is important to recognise that neurosurgery for mental disorder does not help everyone, it has transformed the lives of some severely depressed patients. ©2003 Newsquest (Sunday Herald) Limited.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 4373 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer NEW YORK -- A whistleblowing veterinarian has entangled Columbia University's prestigious medical center in a protracted dispute after alleging that baboons and other lab animals suffered from cruel or negligent treatment. A year after veterinarian Catherine Dell'Orto complained to senior medical center officials, the case remains very much alive. It is the subject of investigations by two federal agencies, and animal-rights activists are seeking punitive action against the medical center. Dell'Orto has left the university, contending she was shunned after speaking up, but she continues to press her cause. Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 4372 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By SANDRA BLAKESLEE Monkeys that can move a robot arm with thoughts alone have brought the merger of mind and machine one step closer. In experiments at Duke University, implants in the monkeys' brains picked up brain signals and sent them to a robotic arm, which carried out reaching and grasping movements on a computer screen driven only by the monkeys' thoughts. The achievement is a significant advance in the continuing effort to devise thought-controlled machines that could be a great benefit for people who are paralyzed, or have lost control over their physical movements. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 4371 - Posted: 10.14.2003

— In a study that calls into question the plasticity of adult stem cells, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers and colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, have demonstrated that adult bone marrow cells can fuse with brain, heart and liver cells in the body. The phenomenon of fusion would give the appearance that bone marrow stem cells are altering themselves to become mature cells in other tissues, when in fact they are not, according to one of the study's senior authors, HHMI investigator Sean J. Morrison at the University of Michigan. The researchers published their findings October 12, 2003, in the online version of the journal Nature. The studies were carried out by collaborating scientists, Manuel Alvarez-Dolado and Ricardo Pardal, in the laboratories of Arturo Alvarez-Buylla of the University of California, San Francisco and Morrison at the University of Michigan. Other co-authors are from the University of Valencia in Spain, the University of Dusseldorf in Germany and MIT. ©2003 Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Keyword: Stem Cells; Regeneration
Link ID: 4370 - Posted: 06.24.2010

— Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers have developed a method for manipulating the molecular “ticks” of the regulatory clock that governs the development of neurons in fruit flies. Understanding how to reset the developmental clock could prove useful in stem cell research where restoring the full potential of older cells could lead to new treatments for a variety of diseases. HHMI investigator Chris Doe and colleague Bret Pearson at the University of Oregon reported their findings in the October 9, 2003, issue of the journal Nature. ©2003 Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Stem Cells
Link ID: 4369 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A combination of two common antibiotics may help delay symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, research shows. A team from McMaster University in Canada treated patients either with doxycycline and rifampin, or dummy pills for three months. Those given antibiotics showed significantly less mental decline. Experts warn that a 101-patient study is too small to draw firm conclusions. Canadian researchers say more work is needed to replicate their findings. But they say their results indicate that antibiotic treatment produces results comparable with currently available treatments - which only work for around half of all patients. (C) BBC

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 4368 - Posted: 10.11.2003

Bruce Bower Registering a memory for the long haul doesn't happen all at once, according to new studies of how people learn perceptual and motor skills. Instead, building memory is a three-pronged process that rests on sleep. First, knowledge accrues during training and dips immediately afterward. A good night's sleep then revives much of what was forgotten, the researchers find. Finally, recalling the learned skill the next day destabilizes the memory of it, setting the stage for an individual either to reinforce prior knowledge or lose it. These findings, published in the Oct. 9 Nature , contrast with the long-standing psychological theory that lasting memories essentially form all at once and don't require sleep. Copyright ©2003 Science Service.

Keyword: Sleep; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 4367 - Posted: 06.24.2010