Actor Christopher Reeve has confounded medical opinion to fight a determined battle against paralysis - and his efforts are beginning to produce results. Doctors thought it was unlikely that the star of the Superman movies would even survive after he broke his neck in a horse riding accident in May 1995. Against the odds, he pulled through, but his injury left him paralysed from the neck down, unable to breathe without the use of a ventilator and dependent on 24-hour nursing care. Reeve describes the fact that he survived as a "miracle". However, he also admits that he had to battle thoughts of suicide. The chances that he would ever recover movement in his legs were tiny. But with a steely determination and remarkable dedication he has begun to prove this grim prognosis wrong. A BBC documentary 'Christopher Reeve: Hope in Motion' follows the star's progress as he gradually inches towards his goal of regaining some of the independence he so misses. (C) BBC

Keyword: Regeneration; Movement Disorders
Link ID: 3426 - Posted: 02.10.2003

By PAM BELLUCK PORTLAND, Me. — Methadone, a drug long valued for treating heroin addiction and for soothing chronic pain, is increasingly being abused by recreational drug users and is causing an alarming rise in overdoses and deaths, federal and state officials say. In Florida, methadone-related deaths jumped from 209 in 2000 to 357 in 2001 to 254 in just the first six months of 2002, the latest period for which data are available. "Out of noplace came methadone," said James McDonough, director of the Florida Office of Drug Control. "It now is the fastest rising killer drug." Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 3425 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Is the pendulum swinging away from low fat? Damaris Christensen This time of year, thoughts turn from overloaded holiday tables to overweight bodies, the beach, and diet programs. Losing weight is not just a matter of looking good in a swimsuit. Packing on the pounds increases a person's risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, and some cancers. Recent surveys estimate that more than 50 percent of adults in the United States are overweight. As the U.S. public has gotten fatter, public health officials have been pushing diets low in fat. A variety of epidemiological data supports this advice, but it's now being challenged as other types of weight-loss diets have gained support. "As a country, our fat intake has decreased, but our calorie intake has increased, and obesity rates are going up," says Bonnie J. Brehm of the University of Cincinnati. "Over the last 10 years, Americans have been so obsessed with low fat that people have forgotten that carbohydrates have calories, too. The pendulum may be swinging back a bit." Some recent studies—and provocative articles in the popular press—have suggested that low-carbohydrate diets, such as the Atkins diet, could be more effective for weight loss than low-fat diets are. However, the low-carb diets tend to be high in fat and protein. So, there are concerns about their potential health effects. Although scientists caution that these diets haven't yet been studied over long periods, several new trials have shown them to have surprisingly positive short-term effects. From Science News, Vol. 163, No. 6, Feb. 8, 2003, p. 88. Copyright ©2003 Science Service. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 3424 - Posted: 06.24.2010

UCSF researchers have identified a novel physiological process that may contribute to obesity in middle-aged mice. The scientists suspect the same process occurs in humans and could be a factor in the weight gain that many people experience as they age. The finding, they say, suggests a possible target for therapy. In the study, published in the February issue of Diabetes, the researchers determined that middle-aged mice expended less energy – i.e., burned fewer calories - to carry out the same physical activity -- scurrying to and fro -- than younger adult mice. The most dramatic findings were seen in a comparison of middle-aged and younger-adult mice genetically engineered to lack a brain cell receptor known as 5-HT(2c), which receives signals from the brain chemical serotonin; an effect, though less dramatic, was also seen in normal mice. Traditionally, scientists have surmised that the increase in weight gain seen in middle-aged mammals, including mice and people, was due in part to declines in resting metabolic rate and physical activity levels. However, in the study, both sets of middle-aged mice ate the same amount, had the same resting metabolic rate and had the same level of activity as their younger brethren.

Keyword: Obesity; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 3423 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Tool sheds light on which specific brain cells are active and when TROY, N.Y. — The mind works in mysterious ways, and one Rensselaer researcher and his colleagues have created a computer automation tool to help solve those mysteries, speed understanding of how the brain develops, delve more deeply into brain function at the cellular level, and make more reliable conclusions Rensselaer engineering professor Badri Roysam has developed a technology called Quantitative cat-FISH that analyzes 3-D, microscopic images of the brains of rats after the animals have run through mazes. By logging important cognitive cellular information — such as activity, cell shape, size, and location — in a simple spreadsheet for analysis, the software is helping researchers identify which cells are active and when. In the past, researchers have only been able to pinpoint which general regions of the brain are active. Researchers used to perform some of the time-consuming cell counting and transcription work that Quantitative cat-FISH does by hand. Roysam's system now allows scientists to process more data and tissue faster and without subjective error. It also enables researchers to make more reliable conclusions. Copyright © 1996–2003 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 3422 - Posted: 06.24.2010

There's no doubt that child abuse has serious consequences. The effects, however, may be even worse than you think. An increasing amount of research indicates that severe maltreatment at an early age can create an enduring negative influence on a child's developing brain. The findings highlight the seriousness of childhood abuse and may lead to increased prevention efforts as well as new approaches for treatment. A twisted arm. No food. Rape. It’s heartbreaking to think about. Almost 900,000 children faced some form of abuse or neglect in 2000, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Clearly these actions have serious consequences, but the extent and nature of the effects were unclear. Now, an increasing amount of research indicates, that while physical wounds often heal over time, severe maltreatment at an early age can create an enduring, harmful influence on a child’s developing brain. The research is leading to: * A better understanding of how negative environments affect the brain. * Increased efforts to intervene and protect children from maltreatment. * New ways to treat abuse. Copyright © 2003 Society for Neuroscience

Keyword: Stress; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 3420 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By DENISE GRADY Doctors reported yesterday that they had for the first time found a way to reduce the rate of premature births in women at risk of having their babies too early. The treatment, weekly injections of a form of the hormone progesterone, lowered the rate of premature births by more than a third. The hormone is readily available. "This is the first real success we've had in dealing with the biggest problem in obstetrics, which is preterm birth," said Dr. Paul Meis, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., who led the study. In fact, the treatment is considered so effective that the study was halted early because it would have been unethical to continue to administer a placebo to some of the high-risk women in the study group, 459 women at 19 medical centers around the United States. Dr. Meis presented the study yesterday at a conference, but it has not yet been published in a medical journal. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 3419 - Posted: 02.07.2003

Broad-based basic and clinical research program needed to better understand interactions of genes and environment "Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean," goes the classic children's nursery rhyme, implying that Jack's trim figure and his wife's portly profile were a conscious choice, since "betwixt the two of them, they licked the platter clean." But as Jeffrey M. Friedman, M.D., Ph.D., argues in a "Viewpoint" article in a special obesity issue of the journal Science published Feb. 7, obesity cannot be easily explained as simply a breakdown in willpower. Genes and environment, explains the Rockefeller University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher, both play important roles in determining a person's body weight. He points put that "in general, environmental factors account for trends in a population over time, while genetic factors account for most of the differences in weight among individuals in present time.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 3418 - Posted: 02.07.2003

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- A newly developed tool that allows researchers to study strands of messenger RNA that bind to a specific protein has lifted a layer of mystery involving a common symptom of Fragile X syndrome, report scientists from four institutions, including the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The new tool, called Antibody Positioned RNA Amplification (APRA), was created in the lab of James Eberwine, a professor in the department of pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. It allows for a detailed analysis in intact cells -- in this case, neurons -- of mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid), which is essential for the transportation of genetic information from DNA to protein-producing areas. APRA was created to study mRNA molecules involved with the Fragile X Mental Retardation Protein (FMRP), which when missing leads to Fragile X syndrome, the most common form of inherited mental retardation, especially in males. APRA and the mRNA-protein interactions it unveiled are detailed in the Feb. 6 issue of the journal Neuron.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 3417 - Posted: 02.07.2003

By JANET MASLIN When Luca Turin was a boy growing up in Paris, according to Chandler Burr's ebullient new book about him, "he was famous for boring everyone to death with useless, disconnected facts, like the distance between the earth and the moon in Egyptian cubits." Mr. Burr sets out to explain how such obsessive curiosity turned Mr. Turin into a pioneering scientist who, in the author's estimation, deserves a Nobel Prize. Like much of what Mr. Turin has discovered, this book is a result of happy accident. Author and subject met at the Gare du Nord in Paris and began chatting about the film "Mission: Impossible" while waiting for a train. They discussed the ending, which depicts a helicopter flying into a tunnel. "Problem with air mass," Mr. Turin remarked, by way of explaining that such a stunt was not physically possible. Since this was not ordinary movie talk, Mr. Burr asked Mr. Turin what kind of work he did. According to "The Emperor of Scent," which gives Mr. Turin a nickname he earns, this scientist's explanation of his audacious theory of smell continued all the way to London. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 3416 - Posted: 02.07.2003

By Peter Farley, Globe Correspondent, Conor Liston looked so young that ''Today'' show host Katie Couric compared him to the teenage doctor from TV's ''Doogie Howser, MD.'' The precocious 22-year-old Harvard graduate appeared on the program last fall to discuss his research into the earliest signs of memory, which appears to develop in infants sometime around age 1. ''We knew a lot about memories in the second year, but we didn't know so much about the first year,'' explained Liston, who had written a paper for the journal Nature with his mentor, noted Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan. ''So [our] finding is among the first to examine memory over such a long period of time at a point as early as nine months.'' But Liston's moment in the national spotlight is now caught up in controversy that sheds light on the heightened sensitivity over research integrity in a time of scandals ranging from historians accused of copying others' work to completely fabricated research at Bell Labs in New Jersey. Though no one is accusing Liston of plagiarism or outright fraud, prominent developmental psychologists say he failed to credit others' similar work, making his research seem more original - and more worthy of publication in a top science journal. © Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 3415 - Posted: 06.24.2010

— Although sweet, bitter and umami (monosodium glutamate) tastes are different, researchers are finding that information about each of these tastes is transmitted from the various taste receptors via a common intracellular signaling pathway. The identification of a common pathway runs counter to widespread belief among some researchers in the taste field who have long held the view that the different tastes require distinct machinery within the cell to transduce their signals to the brain, which is responsible for processing taste perceptions. The discovery also opens the way for more precise genetic manipulation of taste sensations in laboratory animals to discover how different tastes are perceived in the brain, according to Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Charles Zuker, who is at the University of California, San Diego. ©2003 Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 3414 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Mobile phones damage key brain cells and could trigger the early onset of Alzheimer's disease, a study suggests. Researchers in Sweden have found that radiation from mobile phone handsets damages areas of the brain associated with learning, memory and movement. The study, which was carried out on rats, is the latest twist in the long-running debate over whether mobile phones are a health risk. Scientists have yet to find any conclusive evidence that mobile phones damage the human brain. This latest study was carried out by Professor Leif Salford and colleagues at Lund University in Malmo (C) BBC

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 3413 - Posted: 02.06.2003

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition Why do we hiccup? It's a question that has vexed great minds for millennia and now, at long last, an international team may have come up with the answer. Hiccups are sudden contractions of the muscles we use to breathe in. Just after the muscles start to move, the glottis shuts off the windpipe, producing the characteristic "hic" sound. Surprisingly, ultrasound scans reveal that babies in the womb start hiccuping after two months, before any breathing movements appear. That suggests that hiccups in adults are just the remnant of some primitive reflex, which occur only when this brain circuit is accidentally triggered. Yet the purpose of hiccups during pregnancy remains unclear. One theory is that the movements prepare babies' respiratory muscles for breathing after birth, another that they prevent amniotic fluid entering the lungs. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Evolution; Miscellaneous
Link ID: 3412 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ERICA GOODE Scientists have developed a technique that allows them to watch the destruction by Alzheimer's disease travel through the brains of living patients ``like a flow of lava,'' as one researcher put it. The technique, described today in The Journal of Neuroscience, may help pharmaceutical companies evaluate the effectiveness of Alzheimer's drugs and aid in the early identification of people who are at highest risk for developing the disease. In the technique, a computer analyses single brain scans taken over time and generates three-dimensional videos. ``People have used imaging before, but the studies have really been like taking Polaroid pictures at the ballet,'' said Dr. Paul Thompson, an assistant professor of neurology at the University of California at Los Angeles and the lead author of the report. ``This is really the first study to chart the dynamic spread of Alzheimer's in the brain.' Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Alzheimers; Brain imaging
Link ID: 3411 - Posted: 02.06.2003

WOMEN really are better at baby talk than men. When talking in the coochy-coo baby-speak that parents often use with their infants, mothers' utterances are less ambiguous than fathers'. And though it is practically impossible to know what babies make of it all, this suggests that infants may find their mothers easier to understand. We know that babies pick up on the "affect" or emotional content of speech rather than the actual words, says Gerald McRoberts, a psychologist at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. But it is still unclear precisely how adults use various acoustic properties in their voice, such as rhythm, pitch and stress, to communicate different meanings to infants. So McRoberts, and Malcolm Slaney of IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California, designed a computer program to evaluate the properties of the speech parents use as they talk to their children. They then asked six sets of parents to play with their infants and make approving or disapproving comments designed either to encourage the child, or to warn them to stay away from dangerous objects such as sharp instruments or electrical appliances.

Keyword: Language; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 3410 - Posted: 02.06.2003

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Dramatic new scans show brain cells quickly and steadily disappearing in patients with Alzheimer's disease, an international team of researchers reported on Thursday. They used magnetic resonance imaging, also known as MRI, to chart a 5 percent annual loss of brain cells in Alzheimer's patients -- up to 10 percent in key memory areas. In contrast, healthy volunteers monitored in the study lost less than 1 percent of their brain cells a year. (C) Reuters 2003.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Apoptosis
Link ID: 3409 - Posted: 02.06.2003

MADISON - The experiences of millions of people have proved that antidepressants work, but only with the advent of sophisticated imaging technology have scientists begun to learn exactly how the medications affect brain structures and circuits to bring relief from depression. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and UW Medical School recently added important new information to the growing body of knowledge. For the first time, they used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)--technology that provides a view of the brain as it is working--to see what changes occur over time during antidepressant treatment while patients experience negative and positive emotions. The study appears in the January issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry. UW psychology professor Richard Davidson, Ph.D., psychiatry department chair Ned Kalin, MD, research associate William Irwin and research assistant Michael Anderle were the authors.

Keyword: Depression; Brain imaging
Link ID: 3408 - Posted: 02.06.2003

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — Sleep is not just for resting, according to new research that suggests the brain uses this apparent down time to process information obtained during the day into more permanent memories. The discovery adds to the evidence that sleep is productive and necessary to brain health and function for all creatures that snooze. Researchers monitored the brains of 10 mice and 4 rats while they slept. Oscillations in electrical activity were analyzed and compared to those emitted by the rodents when they were awake. Copyright © 2002 Discovery Communications Inc

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Sleep
Link ID: 3407 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Rat study hints that surgery drugs can kill growing nerve cells. BRIAN FISKE Anaesthetics given to expectant mothers or young babies could damage infants' brains, warns a new study. The drugs kill nerve cells in newborn rats1. US researchers gave week-old rats a cocktail of anaesthetics that are commonly used in paediatric surgery. One day later they found 15 times more dead cells than normal in parts of the rodents' brains. As adults, the animals developed learning problems. The study supports concerns that newborn babies could suffer subtle brain damage after surgery. "We do not want to create a panic," cautions team member John Olney of Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri. It is too early to say whether anaesthetics have the same effect in humans, he explains. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 3406 - Posted: 06.24.2010