Hollywood may soon be able to craft acoustic illusions that sound even better than the real thing. New experimental findings reveal that scientists can generate imitations of real-life sounds significantly more convincing than actual recordings of the events they are intended to mimic--results that also shed light on how the brain extracts meaning from experiences. Sound effects technicians, known as Foley artists after Hollywood pioneer Jack Foley, create the noises that bring to life the soundscapes of radio, film, and television. Because giant explosions and other, less extraordinary activities often prove impractical to record in a studio, Foley artists traditionally relied on props. For instance, the sound of a crackling fire can be imitated by twisting cellophane, and squeezing a box of cornstarch can duplicate the sound of footsteps in snow. Copyright © 2002 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 2197 - Posted: 06.24.2010

First fruits of the genome project identify genes in flies bred for a behavioral preference SAN DIEGO – From Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew to Yorkshire ‘lowfat' pigs, people have been breeding animals and plants for desirable traits since prehistoric times. But there has been no easy way of telling which genes have been favored by the selective breeding. Until now. By making use of the new technique of DNA microarrays ("chips"), a team of scientists lead by Ralph J. Greenspan at The Neurosciences Institute has discovered a way of solving the conundrum of identifying which genes have changed when breeding for a particular trait. In their study of two strains of the common fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster), selected for differences in their response to gravity ("geotaxis”), they have found that the difference is due to small contributions from many genes, and they have identified several of the genes, two of which have human genetic counterparts.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 2196 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Laboratory rats that have been repeatedly depleted of salt become sensitized to amphetamine, exhibiting an exaggerated hyperactive response to the drug and an unusual pattern of neuronal growth in a part of their brains, neuroscientists have found. The researchers, headed by University of Washington psychologist Ilene Bernstein, discovered that nerve cells in the nucleus accumbens of sensitized rats have more branches and were 30 percent to 35 percent longer than normal. The nucleus accumbens, located in the forebrain, is involved in the reward and motivation system in rats and in humans. It is associated with regulating motivated behaviors of such natural drives as those for food and salt, and for artificial rewards provided by drugs. The findings are published in the current issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

Keyword: Obesity; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 2195 - Posted: 06.04.2002

Scientists say they have discovered how a strong smell or a song can sometimes trigger a vivid memory. Researchers in the US say they have pinpointed the precise region of the brain that sparks such recollections. They say the discovery may explain why what appears to be a simple song or a random perfume can lead us to remember evenings with friends or holidays abroad, for instance. According to scientists at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, the CA3 region of the hippocampus is key to this process. It has long been known that this part of the brain plays a key role in long term memory development. It is essential for initial storage of memories before they are transferred for storage elsewhere. As a result, a person whose hippocampus is injured cannot form new memories. (C) BBC

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 2193 - Posted: 06.04.2002

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY When state officials moved in March to close Seaport Manor in Brooklyn, long one of New York's most notoriously troubled adult homes for the mentally ill, they pledged to do all they could to protect the safety and well-being of its nearly 300 residents. But the home's discharge records and interviews with officials show that the state, in coordination with Seaport's management, has merely been relocating many of the profoundly ill residents to other adult homes that have their own histories of neglect. In one instance, the records show, a resident was delivered to a homeless shelter. At least 18 residents have been sent from Seaport to the 240-bed King Solomon Manor in Jamaica, Queens, where state inspectors discovered last year that one resident wore urine-soaked clothing for days, while another was so poorly supervised that he had to be taken to an emergency room suffering from dehydration, according to an August 2001 report. One resident's room was infested with gnats, the report said, concluding that the home's care and cleanliness were chronically deficient. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 2192 - Posted: 06.03.2002

New research shows that what falls below the horizon line in ambiguous figure-ground pictures is most often seen as the 'figure' WASHINGTON - Every student of introductory psychology has seen figure-ground pictures, those ambiguous illustrations that demonstrate the flexibility of human perception. Is it a light goblet or two dark profiles? An elegant lady with a feather in her hat, or a vase? These figure-ground pictures are important to understanding how people make sense out of their visual environments, and act on what they perceive. Now, three University of Iowa psychologists have systematically documented that people usually see what falls in the lower region of a figure-ground picture as the "figure," not the "ground." They report their findings in the June issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General , published by the American Psychological Association (APA). The article covers eight experiments whose results consistently confirmed that people pick what constitutes the lower, not upper, region of a display as the "figure," not the "ground," at rates greater than chance. © PsycNET 2002 American Psychological Association

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 2191 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Why do we worry ourselves sick? Because the brain is hardwired for fear, and sometimes it short-circuits By Christine Gorman It's 4 a.m., and you're wide awake — palms sweaty, heart racing. You're worried about your kids. Your aging parents. Your 401(k). Your health. Your sex life. Breathing evenly beside you, your spouse is oblivious. Doesn't he — or she — see the dangers that lurk in every shadow? He must not. Otherwise, how could he, with all that's going on in the world, have talked so calmly at dinner last night about flying to Florida for a vacation? How is it that two people facing the same circumstances can react so differently? Why are some folks buffeted by the vicissitudes of life while others glide through them with grace and calm? Are some of us just born more nervous than others? And if you're one of them, is there anything you can do about it? The key to these questions is the emotional response we call anxiety. Unlike hunger or thirst, which build and dissipate in the immediate present, anxiety is the sort of feeling that sneaks up on you from the day after tomorrow. It's supposed to keep you from feeling too safe. Without it, few of us would survive. © 2002 Time Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Stress; Emotions
Link ID: 2190 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Kim Painter, special for USA TODAY ARLINGTON, Va. — Thomas DeBaggio reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a crisp, neatly folded piece of white paper. He holds it out, exhibit A. Next, he reaches in and pulls out a pen, exhibit B. "This is what I carry with me," he says. "These two are now my brain. This is how I remember things. I write them down." Except this morning, the paper is blank, the pen capped. A lot of days lately are like that. © Copyright 2002 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 2189 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NewScientist.com news service A cellular version of a traffic jam may be what causes neurodegenerative diseases like the one suffered by the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. Using a genetically engineered mouse, researchers in Pennsylvania have shown that clogging up the routes between motor neurons and the muscles they control can be a cause, rather than a symptom, of lost motor control. Motor neurons reside in the brain and spinal cord but control movements in body parts as far away as our toes and fingers. To do this, they have very long projections, or axons, which sometimes stretch up to a metre in length. Good motor control depends on these axons acting as supply routes, to transport proteins and other molecules back and forth. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease
Link ID: 2188 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By GINA KOLATA Until recently, a patient like Carolyn E. Hoard would never have been told she was progressing toward Alzheimer's disease. A 61-year-old mental health counselor in Kittanning, Pa., she reported nothing more than a mild loss of memory, particularly when it came to recalling what someone had said in conversation a few minutes ago. Her first neurologist told her she was fine. But the memory lapses persisted, and Ms. Hoard went to a second neurologist, who gave her the news she had been dreading: she suffered from mild cognitive impairment, usually the first sign of Alzheimer's disease. The term is new, having entered the vocabulary of memory specialists in the late 1990's. Now more and more doctors, combining tools as sophisticated as brain imaging and as simple as a short test of word recall, are making the diagnosis. Researchers and drug companies say the new category will enable them to track the progression of Alzheimer's disease and understand it better. They are already testing a wide array of treatments in these patients — from vitamins to hormones to new drugs as well as drugs already approved for Alzheimer's. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 2187 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By WILLIAM J. HOLSTEIN TARRYTOWN, N.Y. -- LEONARD S. SCHLEIFER, the son of a sweater manufacturer who grew up in the Rego Park section of Queens, was on his way to becoming a distinguished scientist. But after he earned an M.D. and a Ph.D. and started a research career in 1984 at Cornell University, he became fascinated with the biotechnology revolution. Though he had never held what he jokingly calls a "real job," he decided to build a company that delivered better drugs to people. So in 1988, he assembled a group of Nobel Prize winners and other researchers and created Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in a former Union Carbide laboratory here. Dr. Schleifer, 49, is now on the brink of one of the biggest victories in the biotechnology race — or one of the most humiliating defeats. His company has consumed hundreds of millions of dollars in investors' capital and has never had a profitable quarter. It developed a protein in the early 1990's to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as Lou Gehrig's disease, but patients lost too much weight as a side effect. The company halted trials in 1993. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity; ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease
Link ID: 2186 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Doctors say they have found further evidence to suggest television programmes encourage eating disorders among teenage girls. It follows a major study examining the impact of the introduction of television in two towns in the Pacific islands of Fiji. Dr Anne Becker and colleagues from Harvard Medical School found that levels of poor body image and incidents of eating disorders among girls have increased since they were first exposed to television. In a country where girls traditionally have good appetites and larger body shapes, many girls now vomit to control their weight, are on diets and believe they are too fat. (C) BBC

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 2185 - Posted: 06.01.2002

Bruce Bower Naps aren't just for the very young, old, and slothful. Daytime dozing may enhance a person's capacity to learn certain tasks. That, at least, is the eye-opening implication of a new study in which college students were challenged to detect subtle changes in an image during four different test sessions on the same day. Participants improved on the task throughout the first session, says psychologist Sara C. Mednick of Harvard University and her colleagues. The students' speed and accuracy then leveled off during the second session. From Science News, Vol. 161, No. 22, June 1, 2002, p. 341. Copyright ©2002 Science Service. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Sleep; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 2184 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Nathan Seppa A drug fashioned from a mouse antibody has halted the progression of diabetes in children and young adults who are newly diagnosed with the disease. By blunting the immune system's attack on insulin-making cells in these patients, the treatment may offer a way to forestall the disease. The work represents the second time in the past 6 months that scientists have reported success in thwarting type I, or juvenile-onset, diabetes in people. In the earlier experiment, patients received a fragment of a protein that protects cells against extreme heat or other stress (SN: 12/1/01, p. 341: Available to subscribers at http://www.sciencenews.org/20011201/fob3.asp). The newer study tested an antibody drug called hOKT3gl (Ala-Ala). In both studies, scientists prevented immune cells from unleashing an attack on insulin-producing islet cells in the pancreas. Insulin is a hormone essential for sugar metabolism. If the islet cells are destroyed, a person needs regular injections of insulin to process sugars and starches. Copyright ©2002 Science Service. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 2183 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Perhaps one of the most astonishing features of the human nervous system is the fact that muscles in one part of the body, for example the feet, can be controlled by neurons whose cell bodies are located extremely far away in the spinal cord. These cell bodies therefore must extend processes incredibly long distances. As most of the proteins in a neuron are made in the cell body, the transport of proteins and other molecules through these very long processes called axons is critically important for proper motor control. In certain neurodegenerative diseases in which motor control is impaired, e.g., amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, traffic along the axons slows down and certain molecules accumulate. Could this cellular “traffic jam” be responsible for the degenerative phenotype and associated muscular atrophy? Copyright © 1995-2002 UniSci. All rights reserved.

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease
Link ID: 2182 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Homeless youths who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender have a perilous existence on the street. Compared to heterosexual homeless youth, they experience more physical and sexual violence, use more drugs and abuse them more frequently, have more sexual partners and have higher rates of mental illness, according to a new University of Washington study. The study appears in the May issue of the American Journal of Public Health. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism funded the research. "A lot of people believe homeless adolescents are on the street by their own choice. That usually isn't the case," said Bryan Cochran, lead author of the study and a UW doctoral student in psychology.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 2181 - Posted: 06.01.2002

James Meikle, health correspondent The Guardian Pregnant women with high anxiety might be passing on future behavioural and emotional problems to their babies, a study has suggested. Researchers who monitored nearly 7,450 women and their offspring from halfway through their pregnancy until the children's fourth birthday found that mothers who reported feeling most anxious 18 or 32 weeks into their pregnancies were two to three times more likely later to have children with difficulties. The behavioural and emotional effects of their mothers' antenatal anxiety and depression were equally strong for boys and girls, although boys were also likely to be hyperactive or inattentive, according to writers in the British Journal of Psychiatry. © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002

Keyword: ADHD; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 2180 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ANNE EISENBERG SURGEONS once had the ultimate hands-on job: spreading the rib cage to gain access to the heart, feeling for lumps in a deflated lung, sewing up blood vessels. But for some operations, like closed-chest coronary bypass surgery, doctors now station themselves not by the patient but at a nearby computer console. With their eyes fixed on a monitor, they use joystick-like controls to guide robotic scalpels, scissors and high-resolution cameras that have been inserted in the patient's body through keyhole-size incisions. However precise and tremor-free these robotic tools are, though, they lack one attribute that surgeons prize: a delicate sense of touch. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Robotics; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 2178 - Posted: 05.31.2002

New Haven, Conn. — Yale researchers have developed a synthetic peptide that promotes new nerve fiber growth in the damaged spinal cords of laboratory rats and allows them to walk better, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Nature. The finding could lead to the reversal of functional deficits resulting from brain and spinal cord injuries and caused by trauma and stroke, or brought about by degenerative diseases, such as multiple sclerosis. The lead author of the study, Stephen Strittmatter, M.D., associate professor of neurology and neurobiology at Yale School of Medicine, said the study confirms which molecules block axon regeneration in the spinal cord and shows that a peptide can promote new growth. Axons are the telephone lines of the nervous system and carry a nerve impulse to a target cell. Copyright © 1995-2002 ScienceDaily Magazine

Keyword: Regeneration
Link ID: 2177 - Posted: 06.24.2010

One of the classic images used in introductory biology and psychology courses is the motor homunculus: a deformed map of the body drawn on the primary motor cortex, showing which brain areas control different body parts. But that map may need to be redrawn now that researchers have discovered a second, fundamentally different type of map in the primary motor cortex. The findings, published in the 30 May issue of Neuron, have mystified and intrigued neuroscientists. Researchers mapped out the motor homunculus decades ago by applying brief--50-millisecond or so--pulses of electricity to different parts of the primary motor cortex in humans who were undergoing brain surgery. Such pulses cause muscle twitches, allowing researchers to associate a particular stimulation with a particular part of the body. Lots of neurons control the hands and the face, they found, so these features of the homunculus are exaggerated, while less nimble body parts, such as the torso, look relatively scrawny. --LAURA HELMUTH Copyright © 2002 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Cerebral Cortex
Link ID: 2176 - Posted: 06.24.2010