Scientists from Imperial College London and King's College London have identified a molecule that helps to wire up the neural circuitry responsible for controlling the movement of muscle. Writing today in the journal Neuron, the researchers describe how the signalling protein named WNT-3 directs specific neurons during embryonic development to make the correct connections in the spine to form a neural pathway that controls muscle. Using mice, which offer the closest model to human neurobiology, the scientists found that WNT-3 is only produced by motor neurons in the spinal cord at a crucial stage when sensory neurons come close to them.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Trophic Factors
Link ID: 2626 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Moores UCSD Cancer Center study Cancer researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine report in the September 11 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association that nicotine replacement therapies (NRT) such as the nicotine patch and nicotine gum are no longer effective in helping smokers quit for the long term. They cite over-the-counter availability of these products starting in mid-1996 as the turning point. At the same time, they report, the number of people trying to quit has gone up dramatically as has the use of NRTs. Further, more than a third of the most recent NRT users are considered light smokers – those who smoke fewer than 15 cigarettes a day – a group for whom these products are known to be ineffective. "Since becoming available without prescription in mid-1996, these products have been heavily promoted to the public," said the report's co-author John P. Pierce, Ph.D., director of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at the Rebecca and John Moores UCSD Cancer Center. "Unfortunately, advertising does not distinguish between light smokers and those in the medium-to-heavy smoking category."

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 2625 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Copyright © 2002 AP Online By STEPHANIE V. SIEK, Associated Press COLUMBUS, Ohio - An influx of immigrants from Somalia and other African and Middle Eastern countries has led to increased use in some U.S. cities of the illegal drug khat, a leaf that is chewed for its amphetamine-like high, authorities say. Khat has been seen in cities such as Detroit and New York since the 1980s. But it was virtually unknown in Columbus and Minneapolis until the late 1990s, law enforcement authorities say. Use of the drug appears to be confined largely to immigrant communities, police in Columbus and Minneapolis say. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 2624 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Sanjida O'Connell Coffee increases alertness and athletic performance, and may even help to fight cancer and Alzheimer's. But don't overdose on it Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death and sweet as love, runs a Turkish proverb. But few imbibers realise that the caffeine within is also the world’s most popular drug. “Caffeine is the most frequently self-administered drug in use worldwide today,” says James Bibb, an assistant professor of psychiatry at UT Southwestern Medical Centre in Dallas, Texas. Bibb is one of the authors of a study, just published in the science journal Nature, which shows that coffee affects the brain in a similar way to cocaine. Copyright 2002 Times Newspapers Ltd.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 2623 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Gretchen Parker ASSOCIATED PRESS BALTIMORE — In what could bolster an $800 million (U.S.) lawsuit against Motorola Inc. and major cellphone carriers, a new study found a possible link between older cellphones and brain tumours. Although many studies have found no cancer risk from cellphone use, the research published in the latest European Journal of Cancer Prevention said long-term users of analogue phones are at least 30 per cent more likely than non-users to develop brain tumours. Newer digital phones emit less radiation than analogue models of the sort studied. Copyright 1996-2002. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 2622 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Whether from a charging lion, or a pending deadline, the body’s response to stress can be both helpful and harmful. The stress response gives us the strength and speed to ward off or flee from an impending threat. But when it persists, stress can put us at risk for obesity, heart disease, cancer, and a variety of other illnesses. A threat to your life or safety triggers a primal physical response from the body, leaving you breathless, heart pounding, and mind racing. From deep within your brain, a chemical signal speeds stress hormones through the bloodstream, priming your body to be alert and ready to escape danger. Concentration becomes more focused, reaction time faster, and strength and agility increase. When the stressful situation ends, hormonal signals switch off the stress response and the body returns to normal. But in our modern society, stress doesn’t always let up. Many of us now harbor anxiety and worry about daily events and relationships. Stress hormones continue to wash through the system in high levels, never leaving the blood and tissues. And so, the stress response that once gave ancient people the speed and endurance to escape life-threatening dangers runs constantly in many modern people and never shuts down.

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 2621 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Chris Hogg BBC Health Correspondent New guidelines for the treatment of schizophrenia are likely to be at best unaffordable and at worst unworkable, say experts. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), the body which advises the government on the appropriate NHS treatment and care of patients in England and Wales, has spent months drawing up clinical guidelines for the treatment of the condition. But there is growing concern that the NHS just won't be able to deliver. Schizophrenia affects more than 400,000 people in the UK. Among them is John Taylor, who has struggled with the condition for almost a decade. It has taken years to get appropriate drugs which allow him to live a normal life. "It's still a lottery people don't get the kind of hope and recovery stuff as early as they should." John helps to plant trees at a mental health project in Derbyshire as part of his therapy. (C) BBC

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 2620 - Posted: 09.10.2002

NewScientist.com news service New research suggests why babies whose parents smoke tobacco are more likely to die of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or cot death. The experiments show that nicotine produces a double whammy, not only directly disrupting a baby's breathing, but also disrupting the early development of the neural circuits that guard against the stopping of breathing during sleep. Hugo Lagercrantz, one of the researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden says: "I think it is most dangerous to smoke during pregnancy, because nicotine may set the sensors that detect low oxygen levels wrongly. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Sleep
Link ID: 2619 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NewScientist.com news service Looking away during an injection really could reduce the pain you feel, new UK research shows. Marisa Taylor-Clarke at University College London poked volunteers' forearms with a two-pronged, compass-like device. They were asked to tell whether they had been touched in one place or two, under four different experimental conditions. In no instance were the volunteers able to see the actual touch. In the first, they saw their forearms immediately before and afterwards. In the second, the area about to be touched was magnified. In the third, they looked at another object, and in the fourth, their arm was in total darkness throughout. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Vision; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 2618 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Proof that human bone marrow cells can travel to diseased muscle BOSTON - Researchers have found that donor cells from a bone marrow transplant given to a one year old boy later diagnosed with muscular dystrophy remained in the patient's muscle 13 years later. The findings, by researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and Children's Hospital Los Angeles, suggest that human bone marrow cells can become part of diseased muscle fibers and be detected many years after transplantation. The new results, reported in the September 2002 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, come from a patient who suffers from two serious genetic diseases. When he was six months old, doctors at Children's Hospital Los Angeles diagnosed this patient with X-linked severe combined immune deficiency (SCID). Often known as "bubble boy disease" after David Vetter, the patient who lived in a germ-free plastic bubble for 12 years, SCID results from a genetic mutation that greatly reduces the body's ability to fight off disease. Patients have little resistance to infections such as pneumonia and meningitis, which can therefore be life threatening.

Keyword: Stem Cells; Muscles
Link ID: 2617 - Posted: 09.10.2002

Pilot project for stroke victims to begin this fall A Queen's neuroscientist's invention to help understand the role of the brain in arm and leg movement will dramatically improve the assessment and rehabilitation of stroke and spinal cord victims. It will also help lay the groundwork for development of neural prostheses that can re-activate paralyzed limbs. Dr. Stephen Scott's unique mathematical model, combined with his new experimental device, KINARM (Kinesiological Instrument for Normal and Altered Reaching Movement), enables researchers for the first time to objectively quantify and manipulate the mechanics of limb movement in multi-joint motor tasks. This device has already generated several new observations on how the brain coordinates limb movements. In a pilot project to begin this fall at St. Mary's by the Lake Hospital, the device will be used to quantify motor function of stroke patients. Motor patterns will be examined first for a number of simple tasks while subjects maintain fixed arm postures, then for more sophisticated tasks where they learn to make reaching movements while the robot applies complex novel loads to assess their ability to learn new motor skills.

Keyword: Robotics; Stroke
Link ID: 2616 - Posted: 09.10.2002

Copyright © 2002 AP Online By JOHN PORRETTO, AP Business Writer DETROIT - The death of a city councilwoman after weight-reduction surgery has focused attention on a newly available technique in which a noose is tightened around the stomach. Councilwoman Brenda Scott, who weighed more than 300 pounds, died Sept. 2 from an infection caused by a stomach perforation, three days after surgery at Port Huron Hospital. The medical examiner ruled the death an accident. Scott, 47, underwent a procedure called Lap-Band Adjustable Gastric Banding, which won approval from the Food and Drug Administration in June 2001. The procedure has been done on nearly 90,000 people in other countries, mostly in Europe, over the past nine years. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 2615 - Posted: 06.24.2010

ST. PAUL, MN -- A new study challenges previous findings that patients undergoing elective coronary bypass grafting (CABG), or valve replacement, experience long-term cognitive decline. According to the study published in Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology, that's not always the case. The study compared the cognitive abilities of 52 patients prior to their CABG surgery and five years after. None of the patients showed clinically significant cognitive decline (defined as a decline of 1 standard deviation or more in at least two of the seven-part Wilcoxon tests administered). Other studies have reported late cognitive decline after CABG, however, none of these long-term follow-up studies included a control group like this one conducted at a hospital in Würzburg, Germany. According to neurologist Wolfgang Müllges, MD, the study author, "No individual patient showed a global decline at follow-up as compared to baseline. Seven patients (13 percent) had worse results in one single test."

Keyword: Stress; Intelligence
Link ID: 2614 - Posted: 09.10.2002

ST. PAUL, MN -- Patients with motor neuron disease, including ALS, were significantly more likely to been slim and to have been varsity athletes, according to a new study conducted by Nikolaos Scarmeas and a team of epidemiologists from Columbia University. The study is published in the latest issue of Neurology, the American Academy of Neurology's scientific journal. ALS, sometimes called "Lou Gehrig's Disease" after the famous baseball player whose career was cut short by the disease, has been associated with many patients who were lean throughout their lives as well as being athletes, said Lewis P. Rowland, MD, with the Neurological Institute in New York, and a co-author of the study. The case-control study compared variables including BMI (body mass index), age at onset of the disease, sex, slimness, and participation in varsity athletics of 279 patients with motor neuron disease and 152 with other neurological diseases.

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease ; Obesity
Link ID: 2613 - Posted: 09.10.2002

By Jonathan Amos BBC News Online science staff in Leicester People are bad at spotting liars because they look for the wrong signals, according to research presented to the British Association's annual science festival in Leicester. In a lecture on the psychology of lying, polygraph machines were also criticised as being poor at detecting falsehoods. The work was explained to the festival by psychologist Dr Richard Wiseman, of the University of Hertfordshire, an expert in the science of deception. "People are really dreadful at detecting when someone is lying," he told the BBC. "They think that liars avoid eye contact and fidget a lot. In fact, liars maintain more eye contact and they don't fidget." (C) BBC

Keyword: Emotions; Stress
Link ID: 2612 - Posted: 09.09.2002

By MIM UDOVITCH Claire is 18. She is a pretty teenager, with long strawberry-blond hair, and she is almost abnormally self-possessed for a girl from a small town who has suddenly been descended upon by a big-city reporter who is there to talk to her, in secret, about her secret life. She is sitting on the track that runs around the field of her high school's football stadium, wearing running shorts and a T-shirt and shivering a little because even though we are in Florida -- in the kind of town where, according to Claire, during ''season'' when you see yet another car with New York plates, you just feel like running it down -- there's an evening chill. Claire's is also the kind of town where how the local high school does in sports matters. Claire herself plays two sports. Practice and team fund-raisers are a regular part of her life, along with the typical small-town-Florida teenage occupations -- going to ''some hick party,'' hanging out with friends in the parking lot of the Taco Bell, bowling, going to the beach. Another regular part of her life, also a common teenage occupation, is anorexia -- refusal to eat enough to maintain a minimally healthy weight. So she is possibly shivering because she hasn't consumed enough calories for her body to keep itself warm. Claire first got into eating disorders when she was 14 or 15 and a bulimic friend introduced her to them. But she was already kind of on the lookout for something: ''I was gonna do it on my own, basically. Just because, like, exercise can only take you so far, you know? And I don't know, I just started to wonder if there was another way. Because they made it seem like, 'You do drugs, you die; be anorexic and you're gonna die in a year.' I knew that they kind of overplayed it and tried to frighten you away. So I always thought it can't be that bad for you.'' Copyright The New York Times Company

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 2611 - Posted: 09.09.2002

By LISA SANDERS, M.D. The E.M.T.'s responded to a call about a young woman lying on the ground, her arms and legs jerking rhythmically and her eyes squeezed shut. The strangers who called 911 had no information on the woman whose seizure they witnessed. The E.M.T.'s checked her vital signs and rushed her to the local hospital. By the time the on-call team -- an intern and I -- were summoned to her bedside, the E.R. doctor had given her six milligrams of Ativan, a strong sedative used in the treatment of status epilepticus, seizures that won't stop. A thorough examination showed nothing unexpected for someone who had just experienced a grand mal seizure (one involving convulsions and a loss of consciousness). ''I've had seizures all my life,'' the patient explained when she woke up several hours later. ''But lately I've had several, even though I've been taking my medicine.'' She said she took Dilantin, a commonly prescribed drug, for the seizures. She added that she was very appreciative of the attention being given to her, since she'd just moved to the area and didn't have a local doctor yet. Copyright The New York Times Company

Keyword: Epilepsy; Miscellaneous
Link ID: 2610 - Posted: 09.09.2002

Some patients who suffer a burst blood vessel in their head could be suffering from a tissue disorder which could be identified with a skin test, say doctors. Aneurysms are areas of blood vessel which have become weakened and bulge outwards. Occasionally, the pressure of the blood flow can burst the vessel, often causing dangerous internal bleeding. If it happens inside the skull - an intracranial aneurysm - this is a type of stroke that can cause brain damage or even death. Experts at the University of Heidelberg in Germany say they are a long way from a reliable screening test for the condition, but feel at least some people are vulnerable to aneurysm because of a disorder of "connective tissue". This is found in the joints and skin as well as the walls of blood vessels, and helps keep all three flexible and strong. Aneurysm may occur, say the researchers, when the connective tissue in the artery wall somehow loses its strength and stretches outwards. (C) BBC

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 2609 - Posted: 09.08.2002

Psychologists have come up with an explanation for why most mothers instinctively cradle their babies in their left arms. Research shows that if a woman is given a baby or a doll to hold she is twice as likely to hold it on her left, rather than her right hand side. Brenda Todd and Victoria Bourne, psychologists at the University of Sussex, believe the reason is that the right side of the female brain is specialised for interpreting faces and emotions. They tested 32 right handed volunteers, of whom 12 were male, on their cradling bias. The volunteers also took a test to determine which side of the brain they used for face processing. The researchers found that females who cradled on the left showed signs that the right side of their brain controlled the way they processed information about faces. No such relationship was found for males. (C) BBC

Keyword: Laterality; Emotions
Link ID: 2608 - Posted: 09.08.2002

by Elizabeth Fried Ellen, LICSW Psychiatric Times Vol. XIX Issue 8 After numerous hospitalizations, electroconvulsive therapy and a battery of drug trials, a college senior remained suicidal. Looking for advice on her patient, a psychiatrist brought the case to a team meeting, only to be told by a senior colleague, "You can't save them all." "That kind of attitude is one I feel strongly can't exist in any counseling center or outpatient clinic," the psychiatrist said, her voice still filled with anger and disgust. "It's a ridiculous attitude." The psychiatrist did not give up on the patient, who has been symptom-free for over five years and is now happily married and employed. "Hopelessness is the biggest predictor of suicide," the psychiatrist told Psychiatric Times . "As a parent of someone who will one day go to college, I empathize with all the parents and have the expectation that the people they go to will not give up on them." © 2002 Psychiatric Times

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 2607 - Posted: 06.24.2010