Many nerve terminals disappear in the a-synuclein mouse By Douglas Steinberg In the half-decade after human a- synuclein (ha-syn) was discovered in amyloid plaques purified from brains of patients with Alzheimer,1 neuroscientists logically suspected that this synaptic protein played a role in Alzheimer disease. Codiscoverer Eliezer Masliah began to develop an ha-syn transgenic mouse in 1996 that he hoped would serve as an Alzheimer model. Over the next two years, however, views about ha -syn underwent a radical makeover. Studies linked mutations in its gene to Parkinson disease and identified the protein in aggregates, known as Lewy bodies, which form inside neurons in Parkinson and other neurodegenerative disorders; ha-syn's role in Alzheimer disease appeared, in comparison, less compelling. Researchers began to envision an ha-syn mouse as the first transgenic Parkinson model. Masliah, a professor of neurosciences and pathology at the University of California, San Diego, published what he claims was the first report of an ha-syn mouse in this Hot Paper.2 The achievement was hard-won, he recalls, because a transgene can have unpredictable effects, depending on which promoter and which stretches of the gene are used. "We had to try a lot of different combinations until we came up with something that worked," he says. ©2002, The Scientist Inc.

Keyword: Parkinsons; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 2887 - Posted: 06.24.2010

In the amygdala, fMRI shows greater neuronal activity in those with a short allele of the serotonin transporter promoter | By Harvey Black A team of scientists at the National Institute of Mental Health has found that a variant of the gene responsible for transporting the neurotransmitter serotonin is linked to greater activity of the amygdala within the brain.1 The researchers, led by Daniel Weinberger , chief of NIMH's Clinical Brain Disorders Branch, used functional magnetic resonance imaging in patients with one or two copies of the short allele of the serotonin transporter promoter. The fMRI demonstrated in-creased neuronal activity while these patients viewed faces showing emotional expressions. The findings show that the gene SLC6A4 affects cognition and emotionality and can be studied directly at the level of brain, says Weinberger. "This will ultimately inform us about why certain genes contribute to emotionality." The research involved 28 subjects: 14 had two copies of the long allele; the remainder had at least one copy of the short allele. MELDING TECHNOLOGIES "What's really interesting about this research is that it's the first time a certain gene [SLC6A4] has been tied to a clear-cut brain response that we can measure," says psychiatry professor Ned Kalin , University of Wisconsin-Madison. "It really melds two exciting technologies--fMRI and genomics--and puts them together in a creative way." Klaus-Peter Lesch , vice chair and professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Würzburg, commented in an E-mail, "The paper is an outstanding piece of work into the influence of gene variation on emotion processing and behavior." ©2002, The Scientist Inc.

Keyword: Emotions; Brain imaging
Link ID: 2886 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Developing safe, specific, powerful memory-improving drugs raises many ethical issues about the implications of cognitive enhancement | By Eugene Russo Though not suffering from any particular ailment, a 70-year-old woman becomes frustrated with the forgetfulness that often accompanies old age. She consults her doctor, who prescribes a memory enhancer. Within weeks, she can find her car keys and phone her children without using the speed-dial. Overwhelmed with reading assignments, a college freshman contacts his physician. The doctor prescribes a cognition enhancer: The student aces his exams. A soldier fights next to his buddy in a foxhole. While exchanging fire with the enemy, a bullet rips through his compatriot's skull, killing him instantly. Witnessing this, the surviving soldier goes into shock, despite the continuing firefight. Quickly, he reaches for a pouch, takes out a pill, and swallows it. Seconds later, he forgets what he saw and resumes shooting--and makes it out alive. ©2002, The Scientist Inc.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 2885 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Federal and biotech labs research a new generation of drug therapy that improves memory and concentration without side effects | By Eugene Russo Cognition--memory, perception, and attention--is a prerequisite to success, an essential for a normal life. When it becomes impaired through illness or accident, a person's life is turned upside down. Existing memory enhancement drugs treat maladies that rob memory, but they are relatively ineffective and have significant side effects. Some researchers, realizing the huge market that an aging, memory-slipping population can generate, are working to modify some drugs currently on the market and to generate others that improve memory, sharpen perception, and focus attention. Goals include increasing hippocampal levels of cycle AMP, and targeting ion channels and intracellular cascades. These hopeful cognition improvers are not household names. "The major pharmaceutical companies have been a little reluctant to venture into this arena," says Steven H. Ferris, executive director of New York University's Silberstein Aging and Dementia Research Center. "The small startup companies have nothing to lose. And frankly, whoever breaks through is going to be very successful. You can imagine what the market size is." THE SCIENCE OF COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT For now, memory enhancement research is primarily geared toward neurodegenerative diseases. The few currently approved drugs are acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. Based on research in the 1960s and 1970s, these drugs work by boosting the effectiveness of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Oftentimes patients with Alzheimer disease have inadequate amounts of acetylcholine in the synapses between neurons. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors increase the effectiveness of the neurotransmitters by inhibiting the enzyme that breaks down acetylcholine. Generally, however, these drugs have only modest effects in patients with Alzheimer disease. "The cholinergic approach is not sustained and not dramatic," says Rene A. Etcheberrigaray , laboratory director for NeuroLogic, in Rockville, Md. "The reason is very simple: It's not linked to an early pathophysiological event." ©2002, The Scientist Inc.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 2884 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Arthur L. Caplan No area of science is command-ing more ethical attention these days than genetics. No other area of science with potential application to plants, animals, and people can match the speed with which new knowledge is being created in genetics. But lurking over in the disciplinary corner--somewhat out of sight of the ethicists' gaze--are the neurosciences. Advances in radiology, psychiatry, neurology, neurosurgery, bioengineering, and psychology are furthering our understanding of animal and human brains almost as quickly as genomics is fueling genetics. The brain revolution promises to be very controversial ethically. Already, some lawyers are trying to submit brain scans as evidence of their clients' lack of responsibility for crimes; government agencies are thinking about scanning the heads of prospective military pilots, astronauts, and secret agents to see who might be predisposed to what; doctors are implanting devices directly into the brain to help patients cope with parkinsonism or epilepsy; and many high-school kids who have no obvious learning disabilities are swallowing Ritalin and other drugs along with their coffee and tea to try to get an edge when they take their exams or scholastic aptitude tests. I think we're a little puritanical about the idea of mucking with our heads. Americans in particular have the belief that you should earn what you get, and that if you take a pill or use a surgical scalpel or drop in an implant, somehow you've cheated. But is it really wrong if altering the brain makes it possible to perform better, achieve more, or have greater capacities than one's parents? Here are some of the arguments I've heard that say it is wrong. I am not sure any of them are all that persuasive. ©2002, The Scientist Inc.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 2881 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Government, institutional, and pharmaceutical groups get together | By Ricki Lewis When actor Charlton Heston announced in August that he is "suffering symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's disease," he used qualified language because diagnosis is possible only postmortem. The lack of a clear set of symptoms and biomarkers is not only frustrating for families, but is hindering the search for treatments. "Guidelines for treating Alzheimer's focus on symptom relief, and these are not sufficient to develop drugs to delay or prevent symptoms," said Neil Buckholtz, head of the Dementias of Aging branch of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) at "Imaging Alzheimer's and other Neurodegenerative Diseases," a symposium held recently at the General Electric Global Research Center in Schenectady, NY. Investigators lack measures with which to monitor the efficacy of drug candidates. "The holy grail is to develop direct in vivo measurements of the plaque and tangle burden in the brain. But until a valid biomarker is available, better indirect measures of Alzheimer progression are needed," said Clifford Jack, director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at the Mayo Clinic. Those biomarkers may be coming, thanks to the NIA's Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, slated to begin by 2004 with $10 million-plus (US) from the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the pharmaceutical industry, academic centers, device manufacturers, the Alzheimer's Association, and the Institute for the Study of Aging. Meetings between NIA and pharmaceutical companies led to the program. "The conclusion was that very little imaging has been done in clinical trials, and in most studies, the imaging quality wasn't very good," related Buckholtz. ©2002, The Scientist Inc.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Brain imaging
Link ID: 2880 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The patients had different types of brain damage Schizophrenia may be an array of different disorders rather than one single disease, doctors believe. Research carried out in the United States suggests there could be at least three different types. A study of more than 100 patients found distinctive brain patterns and clinical symptoms in people who have been diagnosed with the disease. Doctors suggested the finding could help to dramatically improve their understanding of schizophrenia and help in the development of new drugs to fight the disease. Dr Bruce Turetsky and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania compared symptoms and brain patterns in 116 people with the disease and 129 healthy people. (C) BBC

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Brain imaging
Link ID: 2879 - Posted: 10.27.2002

Experiment with Rats Models Earlier Results with Humans WASHINGTON - Postmenopausal women with Alzheimer's disease who undergo long-term estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) may make their memory loss worse, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Arizona. The study in the October issue of Behavioral Neuroscience, a journal published by the American Psychological Association (APA), used female rats to study the effect of ERT on memory. The findings are transferable to humans because the conditions reproduced in the study are analogous to that of postmenopausal women who have existing brain inflammation caused by a neurodegenerative illness like Alzheimer's or by head trauma and then choose to undergo long-term ERT. G. L. Wenk, Ph.D., and colleagues at the Arizona Research Laboratories at the University of Arizona had 40 rats perform a water maze task to look at the interaction of two conditions known to exist within the brains of female Alzheimer's patients, 1) the presence of chronic neuroinflammation, and 2) having too much or not enough estrogen. Both of these conditions are likely to precede the onset of symptoms associated with Alzheimer's. As part of the experiment, some of the rats were ovariectomized (had their ovaries surgically removed) to mimic the changes seen in postmenopausal women. Aged rats do not undergo an ovarian failure but ovariectomized rats experience both the ovarian failure and the alterations in gene expression within the hypothalamus that appear in women in menopause. © PsycNET 2002 American Psychological Association

Keyword: Alzheimers; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 2878 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition Eating too much monosodium glutamate - the flavour enhancer common in oriental and processed foods - could make you go blind. Researchers at Hirosaki University in Japan have found that rats fed on diets high in MSG suffer vision loss and have thinner retinas. Glutamate is an amino acid that acts as a neurotransmitter. It has already been shown to cause nerve damage in experiments where it is injected directly into the eye. But according to lead researcher Hiroshi Ohguro, his is the first study to show that eye damage can be caused by eating food containing MSG. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Vision; Apoptosis
Link ID: 2877 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ALINA TUGEND Body bags. Dying rats. Dog urine. These are some of the images used in state and nationwide anti-smoking commercials that are sounding a contentious theme. Rather than spotlighting the ill effects of cigarettes, the ads are focusing on the supposed evils of the tobacco industry. The commercials, which run on youth-oriented television and radio stations, rotate every few months. Among the most vivid are ones that depict body bags piled up in front of the headquarters of Philip Morris , gasping rats to dramatize that cigarettes include the same ingredient — ammonia — as rat poison, and a dog walker offering to sell dog urine to tobacco companies because cigarettes contain urea. Anti-smoking advocates and tobacco companies agree that the campaign has been highly effective. But while smoking-prevention groups say that such campaigns resonate, especially with teenagers, industry officials argue that in some cases they do little more than vilify cigarette companies and their employees. Copyright The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 2876 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Don't forget to eat your fish now - or you might start forgetting later. A new study has found that elderly people who eat fish or seafood once a week or more had a lower risk of developing dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. "There is an inverse association," says Dr Pascale Barberger-Gateau, lead author of the study appearing in the October. 26 issue of the British Medical Journal. "The risk of dementia decreased with the frequency of fish consumption." © Health24 2000-2002. All rights reserved

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Alzheimers
Link ID: 2875 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by CAMILLA CAVENDISH Autism in children under eight has increased tenfold since 1988. A new study claims this is due not to better diagnosis but to unknown factors. We must establish whether MMR is one of them LAST WEEK, researchers at the University of California opened a Pandora’s box that British officials have been trying to keep the lid on for years. The team claims that the dramatic increase in the number of children with autism in the state — the numbers have tripled in the past 15 years — is a genuine increase that is caused by some unknown factor, not by greater awareness of the disease. If this is true, it is dynamite. Doctors and officials in America and Britain have long tried to explain away the increases in autism by claiming that we just had not diagnosed the disease properly before. Copyright 2002 Times Newspapers Ltd.

Keyword: Autism; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 2874 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Millions suffer from a malady in the dark recesses around the eyes BY JOANNIE FISCHER 'It hurt so much I prayed for death." "The pain was so intense that I just wept." "I couldn't leave bed for six months." "For two years, I simply couldn't function." These are not the words of back pain or heart disease victims but of sufferers of a condition reported to cause even more pain, depression, and fatigue: chronic sinusitis, a disease striking more people than ever before and likely to keep expanding its grip for some time. Thanks to a proliferating number of triggers, such as pollution and household chemicals, the persistent inflammation of cavities found inside the cheeks and forehead and between and behind the eyes is now the nation's most common chronic disease, affecting as many as 37 million Americans. The rise is especially alarming because the disease is poorly understood, often misdiagnosed, and notoriously difficult to treat. And if left to run rampant, it can infect the brain and even cause blindness. As researchers redouble their efforts to understand the malady in the dark recesses of the head, whole new theories are emerging about how our bodies interact with the world. Copyright © 2002 U.S. News & World Report, L.P.

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 2873 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The chain reaction which causes massive damage to the brain following a stroke could be halted by an experimental drug. So far, the drug has only been tested on animals, but results are promising, and scientists are hopeful that it might be effective in humans as well. A stroke is caused when a blood vessel supplying part of the brain suffers a blockage or ruptures. The brain cells are starved of the vital oxygen that the blood carries, and start to die. However, other cells in the same area often die, even though there is no apparent reason for this to happen. Effectively, many more cells "commit suicide" than are actually killed by the direct impact of the stroke itself. This means that patients suffer far more brain damage than if this process could be halted. (C) BBC

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 2872 - Posted: 10.26.2002

John Travis For a tiny worm called Caenorhabditis elegans, it's not the brain that goes in old age; it's the muscles. This millimeter-long nematode, say researchers, may provide insights on why aging people also lose muscle power. Over the past few decades, C. elegans has earned scientific fame because its transparent body and small total number of cells have enabled scientists to document the worm's development from a fertilized egg into an adult animal. Three scientists who studied that phase of the nematode's life just won a Nobel prize (SN: 10/12/02, p. 229: Available to subscribers at http://www.sciencenews.org/20021012/fob5.asp). Now, another group of researchers has taken a close look at the other end of the worm's life. In the Oct. 24 Nature , Monica Driscoll of Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J., and her colleagues document how cells and tissues change in aging worms and report that the old worms may have much in common with old people. From Science News, Vol. 162, No. 17, Oct. 26, 2002, p. 260. Copyright ©2002 Science Service. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Muscles
Link ID: 2871 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By NICHOLAS WADE Scientists at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass., have made a significant stride toward understanding how a living cell's operations are controlled by the information in its genome. The insight, which gives a detailed view of the cell's computerlike biological circuitry, should help researchers understand the cellular programming errors that underlie cancer and other diseases. The study of cells as miniature process-control computers has been made possible by several recent advances in technology. One is the DNA decoding machines that have provided the genome, or full DNA sequence, of several different species. The genomes, containing thousands of genes capable of making an even larger number of proteins, have raised in acute form the question of how a cell controls and coordinates the activity of such a complex system. Biologists accustomed to working on one gene at a time have had to develop new tools to track the activity of thousands of genes simultaneously. One such tool is the microarray, or expression chip, which can display which of a cell's genes are switched on and being transcribed to make protein. But the expression chips, while useful, do not by themselves reveal how the cell has chosen to switch on one set of genes and switch off another. Copyright The New York Times Company

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 2870 - Posted: 10.26.2002

DEAR DR. PETER GOTT: Recently, much to my horror, I was told that older women, while leaning back in their hair dryers, may suffer strokes. Please tell me more. DEAR READER: When a person extends the head forcefully back, this position tends to reduce blood flow through the carotid arteries in the neck. In young people, there is ordinarily no problem. In older adults, however, who typically have some arteriosclerotic blockage in the carotid arteries, such a maneuver can severely reduce blood flow to the brain, resulting in faintness, weakness or loss of consciousness. Known as ''beauty-parlor syncope,'' this condition can be quickly reversed by flexing the head into a more normal position. In contrast, persisting hyperextension of the head can lead to stroke or unconsciousness. Your information is correct but, fortunately, beauty-parlor syncope is rare. Nonetheless, any woman who experiences faintness when her head is extended should, in my opinion, have a carotid ultrasound examination. The problem here is not the beauty parlors, but the position of the customer's head. ©1996-2002 The Dominion Post

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 2869 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Traditionally, patients had invasive brain surgery Doctors have halted the trial of a treatment for brain injury after it was shown to cut the risk of death and disability by 25%. The treatment, for patients who have suffered a burst blood vessel in the brain, does not require invasive surgery. The trial was designed to compare this technique with the traditional treatment which involves neurosurgery. But doctors decided it would be wrong to carry on the trial after results proved conclusively that the new treatment offered such significant advantages. The international study looked at patients in centres in Europe, Australia and North America. The 2,000 patients who took part in the study before it was stopped in May, had suffered burst blood vessels, or aneurysms, in the brain. (C) BBC

Keyword: Stroke; Miscellaneous
Link ID: 2868 - Posted: 10.25.2002

NewScientist.com news service Implanting electrodes into the brains of two patients has rid them of the symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder, researchers in France report. Surgically implanted electrodes are used to treat the tremors associated with Parkinson's disease, though the method is reserved for only the most severe cases. But this study suggests that such "deep brain stimulation" could also be useful for treating behavioural problems associated with psychiatric disorders too. Luc Mallet, Yves Agid and their colleagues from Hôpital de la Pitie-Salpêtrière in Paris had performed the surgery to treat Parkinson's symptoms. But the surgical team were unaware that two of their patients had obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) as well. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Link ID: 2867 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Drugs to protect the brains of Alzheimer's patients could result from new finding. Duke University Medical Center researchers have discovered that a seemingly mild "insult" to the brain could sensitize neurons to attack by immune system proteins that are otherwise protective. The finding could explain why sufferers of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases significantly worsen following such insults. According to the scientists, such minimal "excitotoxic insults" could include brief seizures, mild head trauma or stroke, or even transient anoxia from fainting while standing too quickly. The scientists believe that drugs to selectively inhibit the immune proteins could reduce the rate of neural damage in a wide range of neurodegenerative diseases. Such drugs could also protect other organs against damage from autoimmune diseases such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, in which the immune system attacks body tissues, said the scientists. © 2002 Duke News Service

Keyword: Alzheimers; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 2866 - Posted: 06.24.2010