By GREG RETSINAS PARENTS who hire tutors to make sure their 3-year-olds can beat out the competition for the best nursery schools are now being told that the time to give their offspring an academic edge comes far, far earlier. New baby formulas supplemented with fatty acids are being promoted as a way to bolster I.Q. and improve eyesight in infants. For formula manufacturers, including Abbott Laboratories, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Wyeth , the additives have become the latest weapon in the $3 billion market in the United States, where competition has grown more intense as mothers reject formula in favor of breast-feeding. The problem, say some parents and doctors, is that the additives may not do what the companies say they do, although their use could cost parents an additional $200 a year for formula. The Food and Drug Administration, which oversees the composition of formula, last year allowed inclusion of the acids, after a five-year review. But the F.D.A. did not accept the argument of formula makers that the additives provide great health benefits, calling the results of studies "mixed." A major independent study ordered by the F.D.A. will not be released until September, and the American Academy of Pediatrics has not endorsed the new formulas because of what it calls their "unknown adverse effects." Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Intelligence
Link ID: 3868 - Posted: 06.01.2003

ANN ARBOR, MI – University of Michigan scientists have used gene therapy to grow new auditory hair cells in adult guinea pigs – a discovery that could lead to new treatments for human deafness and age-related hearing loss. Healthy hair cells are vital to the ability to hear, but aging, infection, certain medications and exposure to loud noises can damage or destroy hair cells causing sensorineural hearing loss – a condition affecting over 30 million Americans. Since the discovery, in the late 1980s, that birds can spontaneously regenerate damaged hair cells, scientists have been trying to find a way to induce the replacement of lost hair cells in mammals. U-M scientists have now accomplished this goal by inserting a gene called Math1 into non-sensory epithelial cells lining the inner ear. Results from the study will be published in the June 1 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

Keyword: Hearing; Regeneration
Link ID: 3867 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Getting over back pain could be partly a case of mind over matter, researchers say. A team from Manchester who looked at patients with chronic lower back pain found patients benefited from a combination of exercise and psychological support. Many had believed their lives had been curtailed because of their condition. But giving them psychological support and advice enabled patients to overcome their back pain. The researchers suggest psychological support could reduce the number of people being put onto waiting lists for scans and conventional therapy. One woman in her 40s had been off work for two years and had a fear of carrying files. Doctors taught her the fear was irrational and showed her how to lift files. She has now been able to go back to work. (C) BBC

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Movement Disorders
Link ID: 3866 - Posted: 05.31.2003

ST. PAUL, MN -- Many stroke patients can be treated with clot-busting drugs to reduce their chances of death and disability. But for some patients, the treatment is unsuccessful because the clots reappear soon after treatment. Now researchers have identified a drug that can break up those secondary clots, according to a study in the May 27 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study examined 18 patients who successfully underwent thrombolytic treatment for stroke caused by blood clots or other blockages of the arteries leading to the brain. In four of the patients, or 22 percent, blood clots formed again within 20 minutes after the arteries were clear. Those four patients were given the drug abciximab, a blood-thinner that prevents blood particles known as platelets from clumping or forming clots. The drug broke up the clots in all four patients. Three patients showed marked improvement in symptoms resulting from the stroke.

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 3865 - Posted: 05.31.2003

ST. PAUL, MN -- The case of a talented artist whose paintings evolved as her dementia progressed suggests that language skills are not necessary, and may even inhibit, some types of creativity. The case is reported in the May 27 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “This case suggests that our brain wiring may be a major factor in determining the nature of our creativity,” said neurologist Bruce L. Miller, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, who was the lead author of the report. The woman was a high school art teacher who had immigrated to the United States from China as a teenager and studied painting in college. She had completed a master’s degree in fine arts, combining training in Western representational art and Chinese brush painting.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 3864 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A new wave of cigarettes often referred to as "reduced risk" is hitting store shelves and the ad spaces of billboards and magazines. But is there such a thing as a “reduced risk” cigarette? Vector Group Ltd. manufactures Omni cigarettes, which, compared to regular cigarettes, have 53 percent less of a cancer-causing toxin called NNK. But researchers at the University of Minnesota studied a group of smokers who switched to Omni for four weeks, and found that while the cigarettes might have 53 percent less NNK, that reduction was not reflected in the smokers. (They measured NNAL, a metabolite that shows up in the urine of smokers; NNAL is considered a very good indicator of the amount of NNK taken in.) The reduction in the smokers was only about 25 percent, which the researchers say is not statistically significant. “Based on our results so far, there doesn’t appear to be any great benefit of switching to this particular product,” says Stephen Hecht, Co-Principal Investigator at the University of Minnesota’s Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center. © ScienCentral, 2000-2003.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 3863 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NewScientist.com news service The key gene that keeps embryonic stem cells in a state of youthful immortality has been discovered. The breakthrough may one day contribute to turning ordinary adult cells into those with the properties of human ESCs. This would end the need to destroy embryos to harvest the cells for new medical treatments. ESCs are unique as they are "pluripotent" - capable of differentiating into the different cells in the body - and hold great potential for treating damaged or diseased organs. But until now scientists did not know how a stem cell renews itself or develops into an new kind of cell. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Stem Cells; Regeneration
Link ID: 3862 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Susan Milius As Canadian health officials press on in their investigation of mad cow disease within their borders and other countries bar Canadian beef, scientists are taking disparate approaches to developing defenses against such brain diseases. Researchers in the United Kingdom studying livestock that resist so-called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies report mixed results. Although earlier tests had found some sheep resistant to infection by natural routes, extreme challenges—injections of diseased material directly into the brain—brought on the disease in 3 out of 19 animals, says Fiona Houston of the Institute for Animal Health in Newbury in the May 29 Nature. Looking at meat treatments, U.S. and Italian researchers are blasting hot dogs with pressure and heat to inactivate agents for a spongiform encephalopathy. The researchers report in the May 13 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they have quashed risk of infection from the food. Copyright ©2003 Science Service.

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 3861 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ERICA GOODE In its best years, it was a pearl on the prairie, a place where bold ideas sprouted like cornstalks under the Midwestern sun, a name that meant the best that American psychiatry had to offer. Troubled souls traveled long distances to find treatment and refuge beneath the pine trees on its grounds. Generations of healers trained in its classrooms. At 10 minutes to 4 each day — a time dictated by the 50-minute psychoanalytic hour — the staff gathered for tea and cookies in the clinic building, chatting with visitors like Margaret Mead, Aldous Huxley and Helen Keller, drawn by its intellectual aura. A highway sign outside of town proclaimed: "Welcome to Topeka, Kansas, the psychiatric capital of the world." Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 3860 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Protein could be used as a treatment for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s disease A team of researchers from Imperial College London, the Charing Cross Hospital and University College London have identified a protein which could be used to protect against neuro-degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's, motor neurone diseases and the damage caused by strokes. According to research published today in The Journal of Biological Chemistry, the researchers discovered that the naturally occurring protein, 27-kDa heat shock protein (HSP27) was able to reduce cell death in the brain. Professor Jacqueline de Belleroche, senior author on the paper, from Imperial College London and the Charing Cross Hospital, comments: "At present, there is no cure for neuro-degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, but the discovery of the beneficial effects of this protein in the brain may provide us with a way to at least slow down the disease process."

Keyword: Alzheimers; Parkinsons
Link ID: 3859 - Posted: 06.24.2010

CHAPEL HILL -- A form of gene therapy created and produced at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been given to children with a rare, inherited neurological disorder. This work involved collaboration with investigators at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and was led by Dr. Paola Leone and a group of 16 investigators and surgeons. The children have Canavan disease, characterized by spongy degeneration of the brain's white matter. The disease affects the growth of the fatty myelin sheath insulating nerve fibers.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior; Glia
Link ID: 3858 - Posted: 05.31.2003

However you weigh the evidence, there is only one inescapable conclusion - books from Simon Baron-Cohen and Sam Martin prove that all men are nerds William Leith The first thing that strikes you in Simon Baron-Cohen's book, which is about the difference between male and female brains, is the author's anxiety. 'I have spent more than five years writing this book,' he tells us. 'This is because the topic was just too politically sensitive to complete in the 1990s.' Writing about sex differences is a problem, he says, because 'some people say that even looking for sex differences reveals a sexist mind'. But things have changed. 'Fortunately,' says Baron-Cohen, 'there are now growing numbers of people, feminists included, who recognise that asking such questions need not lead to the perpetuation of sexual inequalities.' The coast is now clear. As a society, we are ready for the truth. Baron-Cohen needn't have worried. The more you delve into the male brain, the worse it looks. And the more you delve into the female brain, the better it looks. When you take the lid off, the male brain looks really clunky - it is competitive, aggressive, narrow and insecure. As children, boys develop an affinity with toy vehicles. Girls, in contrast, warm to people. Boys make obsessive lists. Girls make friends. Adolescent boys become tongue-tied and inarticulate. Girls develop a wide range of linguistic and social skills. There are, the author tells us, '412 discrete human emotions'. Girls grow up with a better ability to distinguish between them. © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 3857 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Are memory loss and dementia inevitable if you live past 90? Not necessarily, say some scientists. Doctors have been reluctant to study the oldest old because of the belief that dementia is inevitable and, at this stage of the game, untreatable. “We have a pretty good sense of what is normal versus abnormal cognitive aging, or how one thinks as one gets older, up until about age 90,” says Bradley Boeve, a behavioral neurologist at the Mayo Clinic. “Beyond age 90, there isn’t much information on what is normal in terms of memory functioning, language functioning, attention, and concentration.” So Boeve and his team studied the mental and physical functioning of 111 people over ninety years old, including 97-year-old nun Sister Bibiana Lewis, who is functioning at a higher level than some people half her age: “I have a schedule I follow. Two days of the week I play pool, two days of the week I [play] ping-pong, and two days of the week I go bowling. I walk the treadmill for a mile, six days a week; I don’t do it on Sunday.” And how does she stay mentally alert? “I read a lot, some fiction, but heavy books. I work the New York [Times] crossword puzzle.” © ScienCentral, 2000-2003

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 3856 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By MELODY PETERSEN Documents released yesterday in the case of a drug company whistle-blower shed light on how extensively doctors were involved in promoting unapproved uses of a Warner-Lambert drug, Neurontin. Warner-Lambert paid dozens of doctors tens of thousands of dollars each to speak to other physicians about how Neurontin, an epilepsy drug, could be prescribed for more than a dozen other medical uses that had not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The top speaker for Neurontin, Dr. B. J. Wilder, a former professor of neurology at the University of Florida, received more than $300,000 for speeches given from 1994 to 1997, according to a court filing. Six other doctors, including some from top medical schools, received more than $100,000 each. Other doctors were paid to write reports on how Neurontin worked for a handful of their patients, the court papers said. Still others were paid to prescribe Neurontin in doses far exceeding the approved levels as part of a clinical trial that Warner-Lambert created to market the medicine, according to the court papers, which are new documents filed in the lawsuit by the whistle-blower. The papers are backed up by hundreds of pages of corporate documents and memos recently filed with the court. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Epilepsy
Link ID: 3855 - Posted: 05.30.2003

Handsome men may have better semen, a study suggests. Researchers in Spain have found that men who are regarded as attractive by women are also more fertile. Their sperm move faster and are generally healthier. The study is the latest to suggest that good looks can be a pointer to good health. In April, researchers in Australia found that men with chiselled jaws and classic masculine features are in better physical health than their less manly peers. These and similar findings have led scientists to conclude that women who seek attractive male partners are, in fact, searching for the healthiest men, most able to father and provide for their children. (C) BBC

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 3854 - Posted: 05.29.2003

We humans are nothing if not talkative. Indeed, it's one of our most salient characteristics as a species. But exactly how we came to be so chatty is less obvious. Despite decades of research into the subject, anthropologists are still struggling to reconstruct the chain of events that produced our unique oral capabilities. Now the results of a new study suggest that one part of the story they thought they had nailed in fact needs revision. Conventional wisdom holds that the repositioning of the human larynx that occurs during infancy--a key morphological prerequisite to speech--is particular to our kind. But Takeshi Nishimura of Kyoto University in Japan and colleagues have discovered that this southward migration of the larynx to a spot between the pharynx and the lungs occurs in our speechless relative the chimpanzee, too. The team employed magnetic resonance imaging (see image) to track development in three chimps during the first two years of life. © 1996-2003 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Language; Evolution
Link ID: 3853 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ANNE EISENBERG COCHLEAR implants that restore some hearing to the profoundly deaf have improved steadily over the past two decades. Although they are called implants, however, these systems still lie mainly outside the ear. Most of the apparatus - including the microphone, processor and batteries that transform speech into electrical signals passed on to electrodes embedded in the cochlea - is still typically worn behind the ear or in a shirt pocket. Researchers hope that one day the entire apparatus, which is designed to stimulate the auditory nerves of people who have lost or damaged cells in the cochlea, can be implanted in the body. But before that goal can be reached, cochlear implants will need to use far less power. Currently the batteries must be changed as often as every four hours. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 3852 - Posted: 05.29.2003

-- In some genetic conditions, inheriting one bad, or mutant, gene copy from either parent is sufficient to cause disease. University of Iowa researchers have shown that it is possible to silence a mutant gene without affecting expression of the normal gene. The findings suggest that the gene-silencing technique might one day be useful in treating many human diseases, including cancer, Huntington's disease and similar genetic disorders, and viral diseases, where it would be desirable to selectively turn off certain genes that cause problems. In particular, the UI researchers were able to silence mutant genes without affecting the normal gene copy even when the mutant and the normal gene differ by as little as a single letter in the genetic code. The study will appear this week in the Online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (www.pnas.org). Copyright © 1992-2003 Bio Online, Inc.

Keyword: Huntingtons
Link ID: 3851 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Spiderman may help to train pilots and treat stroke patients. HELEN R. PILCHER Playing video games could be good for your vision. A new study suggests that action games might help to rehabilitate visually impaired patients or train military personnel. Male undergraduates who played driving or shoot-em-up games such as Grand Theft Auto and Medal of Honor several times a week for at least six months beat non-gamers in lab vision tests1, found Shawn Green and Daphne Bavelier of the University of Rochester in New York state. Game-players react to fast-moving objects more efficiently, explains Bavelier, and can track up to five objects at a time - 30% more than non-players. "They can process more information more quickly over time," she says. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 3850 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Men's underarms may hold clue to new fertility drug. HELEN R. PILCHER Ladies! Looking for a way to relax? Then try sniffing a man's underarm. New research shows that armpit sweat calms female volunteers. It also shifts menstrual cycles, so the discovery could give rise to perspiration-derived drugs to manipulate female fertility. "The underarm contains physiologically active pheromones," says chemist George Preti of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelpha, Pennsylvania, who led the study. These behaviour-altering chemicals - which are common throughout the animal world - can affect the brain, and hence our bodies, without our even realizing it. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste); Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 3849 - Posted: 06.24.2010