By ARMELLE CASAU Half a century of selective breeding has had an unappetizing side effect for the nation's $40 billion-a-year pork industry. In what researchers say is a biochemical chain reaction sometimes caused by a stress syndrome inadvertently bred into many pigs, 10 to 15 percent of pork turns into sweating pale cuts of meat that ooze liquid in the packaging and become leathery when cooked. The pork industry estimates that the problem costs $90 million a year in lost revenue. Now the losses have led to research to seek new ways to improve breeding and handling. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Stress; Animal Rights
Link ID: 4346 - Posted: 10.07.2003

By SANDRA BLAKESLEE With the help of some fat yellow mice, scientists have discovered exactly how a mother's diet can permanently alter the functioning of genes in her offspring without changing the genes themselves. The unusual strain of mouse carries a kind of trigger near the gene that determines not only the color of its coat but also its predisposition to obesity, diabetes and cancer. When pregnant mice were fed extra vitamins and supplements, the supplements interacted with the trigger in the fetal mice and shut down the gene. As a result, obese yellow mothers gave birth to standard brown baby mice that grew up lean and healthy. Scientists have long known that what pregnant mothers eat — whether they are mice, fruit flies or humans — can profoundly affect the susceptibility of their offspring to disease. But until now they have not understood why, said Dr. Randy Jirtle, a professor of radiation oncology at Duke and senior investigator of the study, which was reported in the Aug. 1 issue of Molecular and Cellular Biology. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Genes & Behavior; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 4345 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD Mighty as Hercules was, he sometimes prevailed only by means other than his own brute strength. When the need arose, the superhero of Greek mythology armed himself with biochemical weaponry, anticipating the technological innovations of modern warfare. Up against the Many-Headed Hydra, Hercules forced the monstrous serpent from its den by shooting fiery arrows coated with pitch. After finally slaying the Hydra, he cut open the body and dipped his arrows in its poisonous venom. His quiver was never again without a supply of poison arrows. The story of Hercules and the Hydra may be the first description in Western literature of chemical and biological weapons. Because myth often contains a kernel of historical reality, the story suggests that projectiles tipped with combustible or toxic substances must have been known early in Greek history, and widely used in combat. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Neurotoxins
Link ID: 4344 - Posted: 10.07.2003

By JAY LINDSAY, Associated Press Writer FALMOUTH, Mass. -- The 75-foot squid boat takes a gentle turn toward a Woods Hole pier on a summer afternoon, its nets filled with an animal whose primitive nervous system holds the secrets of the human brain. Loligo's skipper watches under a hot sky, the squid expelling jets of water as a deckhand scoops them from the boat for transport to the Marine Biological Laboratory, just a few hundred yards away. From the time of delivery, professor George Langford knows he has a few hours, tops, to get his squid dissected so he can continue researching the mysteries of how the brain remembers, and what makes it forget when a disease such as Alzheimer's takes hold. Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 4343 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Alzheimer's could triple in the UK over the next 50 year An anti-dementia drug could give people with Alzheimer's the chance to delay their move to long-term residential care, according to a US study. People who took Aricept were able to remain in their own homes for an extra 18 months before they needed full time care, researchers found. That could provide comfort to many families and also help them save on the average £500 a week cost of a place in a nursing home. Earlier this year the Alzheimer's Research Trust estimated the cost of providing long term care could double to £11bn a year by 2030. But charities for the elderly warned that if patients stayed in the community longer, then adequate support and funding must be given to those who care for them. They also warned that in many areas of the country people are still having difficulty accessing proper care even if they want it. (C) BBC

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 4342 - Posted: 10.06.2003

By REUTERS STOCKHOLM, — Two scientists who developed a way to see inside the body in a way that limits pain and gives more information ahead of surgery won the 2003 Nobel prize for medicine, Sweden's Karolinska Institutet said on Monday. Paul Lauterbur, 74, of the United States and Peter Mansfield, who will turn 70 this week, of Britain won the prize for their discoveries concerning magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the university hospital said in a statement. "They have made seminal discoveries concerning the use of magnetic resonance... which represents a breakthrough in medical diagnostics and research," the institute's Nobel Assembly said in its citation for the prize, worth 10 million crowns ($1.3 million). Lauterbur's and Mansfield's discoveries led to the development of modern MRI, a method yielding three-dimensional images of organs inside the human body. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 4341 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Could help improve treatment of anxiety WASHINGTON -- Behavior therapists may have a better way to help anxious patients, thanks to insights from a UCLA study of different ways to get mice past their fears. Rodents have long been used to study learning by association. Neuroscientists compared different ways of exposing mice to a stimulus that they had learned to fear, and found that "massing" the feared stimulus -– delivering it in concentrated bursts, not pacing it with longer pauses in between -- was surprisingly efficient at helping to erase its impact. This study appears in the October issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, which is published by the American Psychological Association. According to the authors, doctoral students Christopher Cain and Ashley Blouin, and Mark Barad, M.D., Ph.D., these findings are significant for clinical behavioral therapy, which has been scientifically proven to work in a range of human anxiety disorders, including specific phobias, panic disorder, social phobia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. At the University of California, Los Angeles, the researchers taught mice (in most conditions, eight at a time) to fear harmless white noise by associating it with a mild shock delivered through the floor of the experimental cage. After a couple of trials, the mice "froze" –- just stopped moving, a fear response –- for about 72 seconds, or 60 percent of the two minutes of white noise. Thus, the white noise became what's called a "conditioned stimulus." It may not have been the original source of pain, but it became sufficiently associated with pain to cause fear all by itself.

Keyword: Emotions; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 4340 - Posted: 06.24.2010

People with manic depression are being urged to demand better medical care. The Manic Depression Fellowship says many doctors fail to provide patients with enough information or choice over which drugs they take. It says this can cause people to stop taking their medication, increasing their risk of committing suicide. The charity has now published a document outlining the different treatments available so they can demand a better standard of care. Manic depression or bipolar disorder affects around two in every 100 people in the UK. However, that figure is beginning to rise as more and more people are being diagnosed with the condition. © BBC MMIII

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 4339 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Happy images trigger sad reactions in the brains of people with severe depression, researchers have found. They were studying people with treatment-resistant depression, which does not respond to conventional therapies. The research, published in Biological Psychiatry, found "happy" images triggered a part of the brain linked to sadness in healthy people. The scientists said the discovery would help them understand depression. They say it may also lead to the development of new drugs for the hard-to-treat group of patients. Around 5 million people in the UK experience depression at any one time. The majority respond to either medication or talking therapies, but around 30 to 40% do not. © BBC MMIII

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 4338 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By C. CLAIBORNE RAY [Q] . A neighbor lost her husband to a brain infection called fungal cerebral mucormycosis. What is it? A. Luckily this is a rare problem; it comes from certain kinds of very common funguses that may be inhaled or swallowed by almost anyone anywhere. In a few susceptible people, the funguses may take hold of the lining of the mouth or nasal tract, or mucosa, and multiply, moving in a very short time to the brain and sometimes to other organs by way of the bloodstream. Death rates are high, especially when surgery to remove the fungal masses and infiltrated tissues and treatment with antifungal drugs are not undertaken soon enough. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 4337 - Posted: 10.05.2003

Further evidence has emerged that an ingredient of cannabis could help prevent epileptic seizures. Some experts are now calling for fresh research into the potential of cannabis-like compounds to help alleviate the condition. Researchers from Germany found that natural brain chemicals which resemble cannabis extracts can interrupt a process which can trigger a seizure. There have been trials of cannabis compounds in MS and cancer patients. There are reports dating from the 15th century talking about the use of cannabis to ease the symptoms of epilepsy. However, there have been few organised trials in humans in recent years, even though cannabis or its extracts are being evaluated in trials against several other illness types illness. (C) BBC

Keyword: Epilepsy
Link ID: 4336 - Posted: 10.04.2003

A chance discovery could lead to the development of a drug that blocks prion diseases such as variant CJD. However, it would only be useful when combined with mass screening to identify infected people who have not yet developed any symptoms. Adriano Aguzzi's team at the Institute of Neuropathology in Zurich, Switzerland, discovered the effect by accident. The researchers engineered mice to produce a protein that would stick to the scrapie prion, so the team could retrieve the prion protein for testing. The engineered mice turned out to take twice as long as normal to develop the disease. Because the protein is soluble, it is ideal for use as a drug. Aguzzi now hopes to mass-produce the protein so he can test it on macaque monkeys that have been exposed to BSE. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 4335 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Susan Milius The extent of a species' home range can be used to forecast how well members of the species will adapt to captivity, according to a controversial new survey of troubled behavior in zoo animals. "As far as I know, we're the first to test species vulnerability to welfare problems in captivity," says Ros Clubb of the University of Oxford in England. She spent 3 years examining carnivore-behavior studies from about 40 zoos. Animals with the biggest ranges, such as polar bears, tended to have the highest infant mortality and do a lot of repetitive pacing, report Clubb and her coauthor Georgia Mason. The results highlight a nasty problem for conservationists, says Clubb. Animals that need a lot of land often prove the hardest to conserve in the wild, yet her results show they could also be the most vulnerable in captivity. Copyright ©2003 Science Service.

Keyword: Animal Rights; Evolution
Link ID: 4334 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Study may influence how clinical assessments of brain injury are conducted in future Toronto, CANADA -- A new study sheds light on why brain injury patients have difficulty performing tasks consistently -- a necessary requirement for holding a job. The findings may influence how clinical assessments of brain injury are conducted in future, encouraging doctors to pay closer attention to 'variability' of performance as a marker for impairment. The study is published in the November issue of the journal BRAIN. It was led by Dr. Donald Stuss, Director of The Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, with Dr. Michael Alexander, Associate Clinical Professor, Neurology, Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Mass. "Our study has shown that damaging certain areas of the frontal lobes can impair our ability to perform consistently -- a key requisite for holding a job," says Dr. Stuss. "Many people who suffer brain injuries from an accident, tumor, or stroke for example, may make considerable progress in their rehabilitation, but somehow have difficulty in daily life. The one area that may give them trouble -- performing consistently on tasks, both within a task and at different times -- may be the most difficult and nuanced for doctors to pick up on with a 'single' clinical assessment. The patient may need to be assessed more than once over a period of time. Inconsistency over repeated assessments is an important measure of impairment."

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 4333 - Posted: 10.04.2003

A high fat diet, although linked to heart disease, does not increase the risk of a stroke, research suggests. Researchers from Harvard School of Public Health monitored the diets of almost 44,000 healthy middle-aged men for 14 years. Although 725 men had a stroke during the period of the study, the researchers found no link to dietary intake of any type of fat. The research is published in the British Medical Journal. The researchers also found no significant link between stroke and consumption of foods that are rich in both fat and cholesterol, such as red meat, nuts and eggs. Lead researcher Dr Ka He said: "Our study indicates that dietary fat may not be a strong predictor of stroke in men. Clearly, more research is needed." (C) BBC

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 4332 - Posted: 10.03.2003

What are your hidden prejudices? By Eric Haseltine Those who would like to be able to read minds—police, parents of teenagers, and lovers—have discovered the hard way that extrasensory perception and polygraphs aren't reliable. But psychologists have made some progress developing tests that can expose thoughts and attitudes buried so deep in the brain that they are hidden even from the person who holds them. Try these experiments to release your own secret proclivities. Experiment 1A Grab a watch with a second hand, then cover the two columns of words below with a sheet of paper. Beginning with the column on the left, uncover the words. Working as quickly as possible, place a check mark to the left of each word that represents an animal or is an adjective that has good associations for you. Place a check mark to the right of each word that represents a plant or is an adjective that has bad associations for you. Note how many seconds it took to finish the first column of words. Now repeat the procedure for the right column, except this time place a check on the left if the word is a plant and on the right if it is an animal. Review your responses, then add a second to each column's time for every erroneous classification you made. © Copyright 2003 The Walt Disney Company.

Keyword: Language; Attention
Link ID: 4331 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Male flies' eyes are specialized for hot pursuit. JOHN WHITFIELD Male flies have an eye for the ladies. Cells in their retina are specialized for spotting small, swift objects, giving them an edge in the pursuit of fleeing females. The 'lovespot' in the male's eye can detect another fast-moving fly from 76 centimetres away; female eyes can manage only 33 centimetres, Simon Laughlin and Brian Burton of the University of Cambridge have found1. "When you see two houseflies buzzing around a lampshade, one is chasing, and the other is trying to get away - but males are much better than females at chasing," says Laughlin. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Vision; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4330 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The "CEO" in your brain appears to be concerned more about the consequences of your actions than how hard they are to produce. That is the implication of a detailed study of the neuronal activity in a critical area of the brain, called the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), published in the Oct. 3 issue of the journal Science. It is the latest in a series of experiments that are beginning to lift the veil on the brain's "executive function" – how it monitors its own performance so that it can regulate behavior. Many cognitive scientists feel that the ACC may be at the heart of this higher order system. Researchers found the ACC responds to discrepancies between a person's intentions and what actually occurs when actions are performed, providing new support for one popular theory on its function. But they did not find evidence of neural activity in the ACC when the brain is forced to change course in mid-action, as predicted by another popular theory.

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 4329 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A pioneering research study using brain imaging has yielded new clues to help sufferers from severe depression who do not respond to conventional treatment Around 5 million people in the UK experience depression at any one time. Whilst a number of successful treatments, both pharmacological and psychotherapeutic, are available and many people make a full recovery about 30 – 40% of people are resistant to conventional therapies. For them their depression is an enduring, debilitating disease and for some, the only treatment options left include psychosurgery and ECT. Now an international team of researchers have discovered that brain activity differs significantly between healthy individuals and those suffering from treatment-resistant clinical depression. Announcing their results in Biological Psychiatry, (October 15, 2003) the researchers were led by consultant psychiatrist, Professor Tonmoy Sharma, Director of the Clinical Neuroscience Research Centre in Dartford. He says: "This is a significant step in unravelling the reasons why these people may not be responding to the antidepressant drugs currently available."

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 4328 - Posted: 06.24.2010

— The life or death of motor neurons in patients afflicted with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) may rest with a somewhat overlooked group of support cells that helps guide, nourish and remove toxins from neurons. Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers and their colleagues have discovered that non-neuronal cells, called astrocytes and glia, can protect neurons containing ALS-causing mutations from degeneration. Their studies also show that if non-neuronal cells harbor ALS mutations, then damage can occur in neighboring motor neurons that are otherwise healthy. According to the researchers, their findings suggest that it may be possible to insert healthy astrocytes into ALS patients to reduce or prevent motor-neuron degeneration. Motor neurons control muscle action, and they are progressively weakened in ALS, leading to paralysis and death. ©2003 Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease
Link ID: 4327 - Posted: 06.24.2010