— Subtle defects in the processing of a single protein that provides structural integrity to muscle cells can lead to several devastating forms of muscular dystrophy, according to studies by Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers and their colleagues at the University of Iowa. The scientists reported in two papers published in the July 25, 2002, issue of the journal Nature that defects in enzymes responsible for the processing of the structural protein dystroglycan are the underlying cause of several rare forms of muscular dystrophy that affect muscles and cause additional developmental brain abnormalities including mental retardation. The new findings will immediately help doctors in providing accurate diagnosis and appropriate genetic counseling to patients and their families. In the longer term, knowing the underlying cause of the muscular dystrophies will help researchers tailor their interventions, according to Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Kevin Campbell . The disorder also disrupts an important component of learning and memory, so Campbell is hopeful that his team’s studies will improve understanding of possible links between muscle physiology and neurobiology. ©2002 Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Keyword: Muscles; Movement Disorders
Link ID: 2369 - Posted: 06.24.2010

ST. PAUL, MN -- Children with autism exhibit abnormal brain development during the very early years of life, according to two separate studies published in the current issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Both studies used MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanning technology to analyze brain volume in those with autism, and age-matched control groups. In the first study, which set out to explore anatomical differences in the brains of very young autistic children, the brain volume measurements of 45 autistic children, ages 3 and 4, were compared with those of 26 children with typical development and 14 children with developmental delay. "We found that the autistic children had significantly increased cerebral volumes compared to typically developing children and developmentally delayed children," according to study author Stephen R. Dager, MD, with the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, WA. The average cerebral volume -- including measures of the cerebrum, cerebellum, amygdala, and hippocamus -- was 10 percent larger in autistic children than in typically developing children. The difference was 12.5 percent between autistic and developmentally delayed children. He said the study shows that abnormal brain development processes occur very early in autistic children.

Keyword: Autism; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 2368 - Posted: 07.24.2002

Two decades ago there was little hope when a child was diagnosed with autism. Parents were often told their child couldn't succeed in school and would have to be institutionalized. Much has changed in the intervening years, particularly in how science understands what today is considered to be a spectrum of autism disorders and how well many children respond to treatment. However, it still can be a numbing and confusing experience for parents who receive a diagnosis that their child has autism and then must sort through the wide variety of treatment approaches available. Helping parents deal with this experience is why two leading researchers, Sally Ozonoff and Geraldine Dawson, have written "A Parent's Guide to Asperger Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism," which has just been published. Ozonoff is an associate professor of psychiatry at the M.I.N.D. Institute at the University of California, Davis, and Dawson is a psychology professor and founding director of the University of Washington's Autism Center. Co-author of the book is James McPartland, a UW doctoral student working with Dawson.

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 2366 - Posted: 07.24.2002

Researchers have long known that women remember emotional events far better than men do, but exactly why this should be so has proved difficult to pin down. Some scientists posit that women experience life events more intensely, leading to better memory encoding, while others speculate that the neural basis of memory formation differs between the sexes. Research published online this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences offers support the latter model. According to the report, women use more and different brain regions than men do when experiencing or remembering intense emotional experiences, resulting in more vivid recollections. Turhan Canli of Stanford University and colleagues connected 12 men and 12 women to a functional magnetic resonance imager (fMRI) to examine their brain activity on a moment-to-moment basis. © 1996-2002 Scientific American, Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Emotions; Brain imaging
Link ID: 2365 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The scientists say dyslexic children struggle with rhythm A poor sense of rhythm could be to blame for dyslexia, scientists believe. Researchers from University College London (UCL) found dyslexic children were less able to detect beats in sounds with a strong rhythm. But children who read exceptionally well for their age were found to much better than most at spotting rhythms. The researchers conclude that an awareness of beats can influence the way young children assimilate speech patterns, which may in turn affect their reading and writing abilities. Up to 100 children, 24 of whom were certified dyslexic, were tested as part of the UCL study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (C) BBC

Keyword: Dyslexia
Link ID: 2364 - Posted: 07.24.2002

By JANE E. BRODY If you think you have trouble controlling your caloric intake when food seems to be everywhere you turn, think what it must be like for children born constantly hungry, unable to feel full or satisfied and, as a result, constantly obsessed with food and eating. Think, too, what it must be like for their parents, who must keep every edible locked away and severely restrict the daily diets of their children lest they balloon to 400 unhealthy pounds. About one in 12,000 to 15,000 children is born with a complex genetic mistake known as Prader-Willi syndrome that discombobulates the hypothalamus, a section of the brain responsible for a wide variety of functions, including appetite control. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 2363 - Posted: 07.24.2002

By NATALIE ANGIER What feels as good as chocolate on the tongue or money in the bank but won't make you fat or risk a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission? Hard as it may be to believe in these days of infectious greed and sabers unsheathed, scientists have discovered that the small, brave act of cooperating with another person, of choosing trust over cynicism, generosity over selfishness, makes the brain light up with quiet joy. Studying neural activity in young women who were playing a classic laboratory game called the Prisoner's Dilemma, in which participants can select from a number of greedy or cooperative strategies as they pursue financial gain, researchers found that when the women chose mutualism over "me-ism," the mental circuitry normally associated with reward-seeking behavior swelled to life. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Emotions; Evolution
Link ID: 2362 - Posted: 07.24.2002

BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA--Could watching Lennox Lewis knock out Mike Tyson make you more likely to win a boxing match of your own? Don't count on it, but a study of aquarium action suggests that watching combat certainly pumps up fish. To examine the effect of watching fights on fight outcomes, behavioral ecologist Ethan Clotfelter of Providence College in Rhode Island set up fights between pairs of male Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens). A third fish watched the fight and then entered the tank against a similarly sized opponent that hadn't seen a fight. Although the two were evenly matched physically, the fish that had watched a fight triumphed 80% of the time. There was no effect if spectators had watched two males separated by a barrier that kept the peace. Previous research has shown that watching fish clash raises levels of hormones such as testosterone, and other studies have shown that higher levels of testosterone make fish more likely to fight. But Clotfelter's study, presented here 16 July at the annual meeting of the Animal Behavior Society, is the first to show that watching aggression makes fish more likely to win their next fight.

Keyword: Aggression; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 2361 - Posted: 07.24.2002

The only known adults in the world who possess a rare genetic mutation that prevents their bodies from producing leptin may open the door to a new way of fighting fat. After injections with leptin -- a human hormone linked to appetite control -- the adults' dramatic weight loss suggests that leptin offers significant promise for treating obesity. Dr. Julio Licinio, professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, flew three cousins -- two women and one man -- from a tiny village in Turkey to UCLA Medical Center last September for clinical research treatment with leptin. Ranging in age from the late 20s to 40, all of the cousins were severely obese and one was still prepubescent. "We hypothesized that leptin deficiency may lead to obesity and, in some cases, delay sexual and psychological maturity," explained Licinio, also a professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. "Although this is a small study, it produced striking results."

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 2360 - Posted: 07.24.2002

Identifying factors that increase the reserve capacity of the brain and enable people to tolerate the pathological changes that occur in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease offers a new and potentially powerful approach to delaying the clinical signs of the Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases, according to researchers at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, Chicago. Research is underway at Rush to identify the factors that increase or maintain the reserve capacity of the human brain. Researchers have known for some time that education and related lifestyle experiences affect cognitive function across the lifespan. There is also evidence that these educational experiences can reduce one's risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. "How these lifestyle experiences actually affect the brain is unknown," according to Dr. David A. Bennett, director of the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center. "We think that education and factors related to education may affect the way the brain responds to the abnormal proteins that accumulate in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease. In other words, in people with similar amounts of these abnormal Alzheimer's disease protein deposits, those with more educational experiences will be less likely to have memory loss than those with less education," he explained.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 2359 - Posted: 07.24.2002

Emotional recall better than men's, study says Paul Recer ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — Matrimonial lore says husbands never remember marital spats and wives never forget. A new study suggests a reason: Women's brains are wired both to feel and to recall emotions more keenly than the brains of men. A team of psychologists tested groups of women and men for their ability to recall or recognize highly evocative photographs three weeks after first seeing them and found that the women's recollections were 10 per cent to 15 per cent more accurate. The study, appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , also used MRIs to image the subjects' brains as they were exposed to the pictures. It found that the women's neural responses to emotional scenes were much more active than the men's. Copyright 1996-2002. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Brain imaging
Link ID: 2358 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Copyright © 2002 AP Online The Associated Press - Scientists have found new evidence linking the reading problem called dyslexia to glitches in a particular region of the brain. The evidence comes from brain scans of 70 dyslexic and 74 non-impaired children, ages 7 to 18. It follows a 1998 brain scan study that reported the link in adults. The new work, by including children as young as 7, shows the brain problem is present at the beginning of reading ability, said researcher Sally Shaywitz of Yale University. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media

Keyword: Dyslexia
Link ID: 2357 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Copyright © 2002 AP Online By EMMA ROSS, AP Medical Writer - The number of Americans with Alzheimer's disease could more than triple to 16 million by 2050, new research indicates. The projections, presented Monday at an international Alzheimer's conference in Stockholm, Sweden, are slightly higher than those conducted 10 years ago, mostly because more people are expected to live beyond the age of 85 than were predicted a decade ago. Some 4.6 million Americans currently suffer from Alzheimer's. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 2356 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Traditional allies split on EPA animal tests Glen Martin, Chronicle Staff Writer A fight has erupted between environmental groups and the nation's leading animal rights organization over the issue of laboratory animal testing. The dispute is the result of a media campaign by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals against three mainstream environmental groups: the World Wildlife Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense. PETA has denounced the three organizations for their support of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's use of laboratory animals to test toxic compounds. Such tests are unnecessary, PETA claims, and could be replaced with toxicology evaluations that don't use animals. ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 2355 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Activity in brain's fear center affects response, study finds Los Angeles Times Scientists have identified a specific gene variation that sparks heightened activity in the brain's "fear center" -- the first gene identified to affect a function of the brain related to human emotion, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health. The gene activates the amygdala, a portion of the brain that controls its response to frightening situations, and has been weakly linked to increased anxiety. David Weinberger, chief of the Clinical Brain Disorders Branch at the National Institutes of Health, said the research is a key step in understanding the complex biological puzzle of human temperament. ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle.

Keyword: Emotions; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 2354 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Peggy Peck UPI Science News STOCKHOLM, Sweden, (UPI) -- Brain researchers report that by using high-tech brain scans and computer simulations, they are now able to detect subtle, almost invisible changes in brain function 40 years before those changes cause the memory lapses, confusion and dementia associated with Alzheimer's disease. Such early detection may be the key to devising effective treatments to prevent the onset of symptoms. The findings were reported at the eighth International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders. Dr. Eric Reiman said he discovered the changes in brain metabolism in 12 healthy volunteers, average age 30, who carry a single copy of the so-called Alzheimer's gene, apoliprotein E (APOE) e4 allele. Worldwide about one in four people carry a single copy of the Alzheimer's gene, which is associated with late onset Alzheimer's disease -- meaning the disease is diagnosed at age 70 or older. Copyright © 2002 United Press International

Keyword: Alzheimers; Brain imaging
Link ID: 2352 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A severe kind of bacteria which causes stomach ulcers could play a role in certain kinds of stroke, researchers suggest. Specific strains of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) were found to be much more prevalent in the blood of patients who had suffered an atherosclerotic stroke. Atherosclerosis refers to the narrowing and hardening of the arteries because of the build up of fatty deposits. H. pylori causes ulcers in the stomach. Researchers from Tor Vergata University in Rome found that strains of the bacteria which produce poisonous cytotoxins can aggravate the risk of arteriosclerosis in large arteries leading to the brain. If cytotoxins attack the artery wall, they can cause inflammation and swelling, restricting blood flow and increasing the chance of stroke. (C) BBC

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 2351 - Posted: 07.22.2002

Scientists have succeeded in making brainier mice. Whether the animals were actually smarter remains unknown, but their cerebral cortex surface area was significantly larger than that of normal mice. The findings, published today in the journal Science, may help explain how human brains came to be disproportionately large compared to those of other species. As the largest structure in the brain, the cerebral cortex harbors two-thirds of the brain's neurons in a thin layer. In humans the cortex folds in on itself in order to fit inside the skull, giving the brain a unique, wrinkled topography. To investigate what controls the surface area of the cerebral cortex, Anjen Chenn, now at Northwestern University School of Medicine, and Christopher A. Walsh of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center developed a line of transgenic mice. The animals carried a variant of a gene that makes a protein thought to play a role in regulating cell growth in the developing brain. "We found that in mice that overproduced the beta-catenin protein the mouse's cerebral cortex grew dramatically so that instead of a flat sheet, it folded in on itself and appeared 'wrinkled' much like it is in humans," Walsh explains. (The image to the right shows the brains of a control mouse (top) and a transgenic mouse (bottom).) © 1996-2002 Scientific American, Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Cerebral Cortex; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 2350 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ADAM LIPTAK Hey, Mom," Michael Grinsted, 16, said as he opened his mail recently, "they sent me Prozac." His mother, Sue Grinsted, of West Palm Beach, Fla., said she had worried about people offering illegal drugs to her son but had not thought about unsolicited mailings of prescription drugs like Prozac, an antidepressant. Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of Prozac, has apologized for earlier mailings of unsolicited drugs to adults with histories of depression. A spokesman for Lilly, Austin Blair, said the company was unaware of the new incident. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Miscellaneous
Link ID: 2349 - Posted: 07.21.2002

THE father of murdered mum Jane Thurgood-Dove says revolutionary technology that provides a window into a criminal's mind will solve her killing. The Niddrie mother was shot execution-style in her driveway in 1997 as her three children - then aged three, five and 10 - looked on. Now her shattered father, John Magill, believes "brain fingerprinting" - developed by a Harvard University scientist and the CIA and used in the War on Terror - will trap the killer. © News Limited

Keyword: Miscellaneous; Vision
Link ID: 2348 - Posted: 06.24.2010