DURHAM, N.C. -- Like biochemical alchemists, investigators from Duke University Medical Center and Artecel Sciences, Inc., have transformed adult stem cells taken from fat into cells that appear to be nerve cells. During the past several years, Duke researchers and scientists from Artecel demonstrated the ability to reprogram adult stem cells taken from human liposuction procedures into fat, cartilage and bone cells. All of these cells arise from mesenchymal, or connective tissue, parentage. However, the latest experiments have demonstrated that researchers can transform these stem cells from fat into a totally different lineage, that of neuronal cells. Although it is unclear at this point whether or not the new cells will function like native nerve cells, the researchers are optimistic that if future experiments are as successful as the ones to date, these new cells have the potential to treat central nervous system diseases and disorders.

Keyword: Stem Cells
Link ID: 2175 - Posted: 05.31.2002

HOUSTON-- A random perfume wafting through a garden breeze can suddenly trigger the vivid memory of a summer’s day six months earlier. A musical phrase can recollect an evening of dinner and dancing in the company of good friends. These apparently random remembrances, triggered by a sensory cue representing only a portion of the original memory, appear to be dependent on a particular region of the brain—the CA3 region of the hippocampus, say researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, collaborating with others from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and Hokkaido University School of Medicine in Sapporo Japan. Their findings appear in an article in the Journal Science, available currently (May 30, 2002) at the Science Express web site (www.sciencexpress.org). “It appears that the CA3 region of the hippocampus is essential for the phenomenon called ‘pattern completion’,” said Dr. Dan Johnston, professor of neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine. “That is the ability to recall memories from partial representations of the original.”

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 2174 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Richard Cohen Come with me into Cohen's Lab. We are going to do some cloning. I have a client with Parkinson's disease, and so I take a cell from his tongue, extract the DNA from it, insert it into a human egg, zap the egg with electricity, add some chemicals (sorry, the exact formula is secret), wait about a day, extract the cells my patient needs and inject them into his brain so -- knock on wood -- he will have Parkinson's no more. It is at this point, if certain lawmakers have their way, that the cops will burst in, cuff me -- and throw me in jail for possibly 10 years. How much of this is science fiction? Well, not the very first part about extracting the cell from the tongue and inserting the DNA into an egg. And not, would you believe, the last part, either. If a bill sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) passes, human cloning of any kind -- even just for medical purposes -- will become illegal. This bill has already passed the House. You might have noticed while in my lab that at no time was my human egg fertilized. So if you believe that life begins at conception, you are not getting life with this process. You might have noticed also that I did not let the process proceed for more than a day or so. I did not implant the egg into a womb, nor did I grow it until term in the lab. Even if I had done so, the bioethicist Arthur Caplan tells me, I probably would not have gotten a child out of the process. © 2002 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Parkinsons; Stem Cells
Link ID: 2172 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The mentally ill are taking charge of their own recovery. But they disagree on what that means By Marianne Szegedy-Maszak Joseph Rogers has languished in both back alleys and back wards. Once, inflamed by the mania of his bipolar disorder, he bought a ticket to Belgrade, Yugoslavia, so that he could personally unearth the land mines in Bosnia. Some psychiatrists remember awkwardly maneuvering around him when–to protest mistreatment by the psychiatric establishment–he led and was arrested at a sit-in during the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Toronto. With his massive build, slightly deranged appearance, unruly beard, and assortment of hats, the formerly homeless Rogers is not a figure one forgets easily. Rogers is no longer using his imposing presence to obstruct the psychiatric establishment. For the past 18 of his 50 years, he has been one of the leaders of the mental health "consumer movement." Since 1997 he has been executive director of the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania, a $12.1 million organization that runs 30 programs for the mentally ill in Philadelphia and surrounding communities. Most of its 326 employees are, like Rogers, consumers (their preferred label, which they consider less stigmatizing than the many others). Says Estelle Richman, Philadelphia's health commissioner: "Without Joe, our system would not be what it is today. It would not be nearly as responsive to the needs of consumers as it is." Rogers is one of thousands of people suffering from brain disorders who have radically changed how services are delivered to the mentally ill. Their mission is simply stated: to encourage self-help, eliminate stigma, emphasize recovery, and provide hope to those with mental illness. The movement is a curious hybrid of the 1960s civil rights movement and more-recent health advocacy efforts–for AIDS and breast cancer, for example. Although it began with a marginalized collection of former mental institution patients demanding the closure of state hospitals, today it's a national, mainstream movement, representing the entire array of psychiatric diagnoses and challenging psychiatrists and other "helping professionals." The first surgeon general's report on mental health, issued in December 1999, stated: "Consumers are now seen as critical stakeholders and valued resources in the policy process." Copyright (c) 2002 U.S. News & World Report, L.P. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Depression; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 2171 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Imaging technologies are advancing at an incredible pace thanks to faster computers, more powerful magnets and more precise radioactive isotopes. One technique set to move forward is magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which has been observed at microtesla fields for the first time. The basis of MRI is that a strong magnetic field applied to randomly spinning protons inside the atoms of the body, particularly hydrogen, will cause them to line up and spin in the same direction. A radio signal beamed into the magnetic field knocks the protons out of alignment, and as they fall back into alignment they release energy in the form of radio waves. The amount of energy released and the time it takes for the protons to line up again is unique for different tissues in the body, so a computer can take this information and create an image of that tissue. Copyright © IOP Publishing Ltd 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002. All rights reserved

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 2170 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Delaying gratification while working toward a goal appears to have roots in a specific brain circuit. NIMH scientists have discovered a signal in a brain area involved in motivation that strengthens as a monkey performs a task for which it has been trained to expect a reward. Munetaka Shidara, Ph.D, and Barry Richmond, M.D. , NIMH Laboratory of Neuropsychology, trained monkeys to release a lever when a spot on a computer screen turned from red to green. The animals knew they had performed the task correctly when the spot turned blue. A visual cue — a gray bar on the screen — got brighter as they progressed through a succession of trials required to get a juice treat. Though never punished, the monkeys couldn't graduate to the next level until they had successfully completed the current trial. The brain signal boost occurred as the monkey worked harder and more accurately as the reward neared. Emanating from a reward-anticipating circuit in the front top center of the brain, the signal is thought to sustain the goal-driven behavior and then shuts off when the reward is assured. Signal alterations may underlie abnormal activity detected in the brain area, the anterior cingulate cortex, in disorders of motivation and reward expectation, such as obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), propose the researchers. They report on their findings in the May 30 Science.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Link ID: 2169 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition The notion that a strict, possibly even God-fearing, upbringing may contribute to obsessive-compulsive disorder has been boosted by a survey which discovered that devout Catholics were more likely to show symptoms than less religious people. Patients with OCD get caught in a vicious mental cycle that can take over and cripple their everyday lives. For instance, a sufferer may become convinced that everything around them is dirty, and in extreme cases spend up to eight hours a day cleaning in a bid to banish the thought. The causes of the disorder, which affects at least five million Americans and a million Britons, are still obscure. But genes, upbringing, head injuries and emotional trauma have all been implicated. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Link ID: 2168 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By BENOIT DENIZET-LEWIS Standing in a circle under the shade of a tall, skinny palm tree, five boys smile in unison as they recount a particularly absurd scene in the teenage comedy ''Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood.'' The boys -- who have watched it countless times on video -- agree that it's a comedy classic, but they can't seem to settle on its funniest scene. ''Man, the whole movie is dope,'' says the tallest of the five, who wears a heavy Starter jacket even though it's 70 degrees outside. It is a bright and sunny morning in California, and this middle-school recess is humming along lazily. Packs of 12-year-olds in dark pants and white-collar shirts (the school uniform) meander about, looking for something to do. Next to the palm tree, three haughty girls with pocket mirrors gossip as they reapply their makeup. A hundred yards away, groups of loud, cocky boys play basketball on outdoor courts. And surveying it all are smiling faculty members with walkie-talkies who easily negotiate this sea of 2,000 mostly Hispanic students. A male teacher leans against a table in the outdoor lunch area, the quietest spot in this expansive courtyard. He is a well-liked teacher who also facilitates the school's discreet weekly support group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 2167 - Posted: 05.30.2002

FAIRFAX, Va,— Researchers have designed a detection system that could soon help track a soldier’s stress level on the battlefield. The advance, which involves the use of the hormone hydrocortisone as a molecular marker, was described here today at the 35th Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society. The meeting is being held at George Mason University. "With real-time monitoring, the user can be continuously aware of his hydrocortisone levels, thus alerting him to dangerous levels of stress in the field," said David S. Lawrence, Ph.D., senior staff member and medicinal chemist at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory. Stress evaluation is important to establishing and maintaining combat readiness among troops. Lawrence said military commanders "would like to monitor the soldiers on the front lines (or in other stressful situations) to determine whether John Smith has reached his maximum stress load where he may become a danger to himself or to his unit. The commanders can then make a more informed decision as to the mission itself and Smith's role in it."

Keyword: Stress; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 2166 - Posted: 06.24.2010

UCLA scientists have developed a fast new way to image how thousands of genes misfire proteins in a mouse model of Parkinson’s disease. The approach may provide a research blueprint for pinpointing the abnormal brain regions linked to autism and schizophrenia. The new findings are reported in the June edition of Genome Research. Last year, UCLA pharmacologist Desmond Smith developed a new method to rapidly track how genes express proteins in the human brain. Called “voxelation,” the approach involves cutting the brain into cubes, then using DNA chip technology and math to reconstruct gene expression patterns in three-dimensional images. This time, Smith used voxelation to compare gene expression in the brains of mice. Half of the mice received drugs to induce Parkinson’s disease. The UCLA team analyzed the brain cubes with DNA chips to track the expression of 9,000 genes simultaneously. They then combined the 9,000 resulting images to visualize how the genes construct the brain.

Keyword: Parkinsons; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 2165 - Posted: 06.24.2010

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Kevin J. McGraw, a biologist at Cornell University, knew what female birds and other animals in crowded, resource-scarce environments look for in their mates: males with potential to materially care for females and their offspring. But what about the human animal? What do women really want, McGraw wondered, as he read thousands of lonely-hearts personal ads in newspapers from 23 American cities. After two months of research, the graduate student in Cornell's Department of Neurobiology and Behavior concludes, "In densely populated and resource-demanding environments, birds and women may not be all that different." Where resources are at a premium -- expensive, big cities from San Francisco to Boston -- so are the men who can provide them, says McGraw. In such densely populated places, personal ads indicate that male-provided material comforts seem more important to women than do emotional or intellectual aspects of a relationship. But in medium- and smaller-sized cities, the biologist's reading of newspaper personal ads found the opposite: Women place more emphasis on emotional aspects or personal interests of potential mates, and less on materialism. McGraw comments: "This study emphasizes the flexibility of mating strategies, depending on the environments individuals find themselves in. The rich guys don't always win. And the nice guys don't always finish last -- although they might have to move to be found by the right mate."

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 2164 - Posted: 05.30.2002

The next time your boss catches you nodding off at your desk, simply wipe the drool from your mouth and say: Scientists have uncovered the first evidence that napping improves performance--at least on certain types of visual tasks. The finding may help explain what happens to the overworked brain and how sleep combats such problems. Students, medical residents, and long-haul truck drivers have long known the value of a good nap. Although lab studies have shown that a good night’s sleep improves performance on learning and memory, none had pinpointed the benefits of shorter snoozes. To see whether napping could improve visual discrimination, a team led by Robert Stickgold, a neuroscientist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, had college students who were not sleep deprived stare at a video screen filled with horizontal bars. Periodically, three diagonal bars flashed in the lower left corner of the screen, and the students had to say whether these bars were stacked horizontally or vertically. The researchers graded students' performance by measuring how long the diagonal bars had to be shown in order for them to answer correctly 80% of the time. Students sat through 1250 frustrating trials during each session, so those who did not nap did worse and worse over the course of the day. But students who took a 1-hour nap returned to their original performance levels in the next test, the team reports in a paper published online 28 May in Nature Neuroscience. Copyright © 2002 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 2163 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Combination Works for Men Who Don't Respond to Standard Treatments By Martin Downs -- Once again, Viagra comes to the rescue. A new study shows that Viagra in combination with Paxil helps premature ejaculators who have not improved with standard treatment. If a man can work up the nerve to talk to his doctor about premature ejaculation, the doctor may refer him to a psychiatrist or a sex therapist, or may prescribe one of several possible medications including Paxil, an antidepressant, or a lidocaine numbing ointment that is rubbed on the head of the penis before sex. © 1996-2002 WebMD Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 2161 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Living near a busy road may stop a child doing well at school, say scientists. The noise is bad for mental health, according to a study of schoolchildren in Austria. A child's academic performance, behaviour and attention span could all be affected by the hum of traffic or other sounds. Being constantly surrounded by everyday noise appears to be the main factor. It has "very subtle influences on children's motivation and cognitive development", says research leader Dr Peter Lercher of the University of Innsbruck. (C) BBC

Keyword: Hearing; Intelligence
Link ID: 2160 - Posted: 05.29.2002

Tennis and golf players, at least the good ones, experience it with every shot: Their brains compute the velocity and direction of a flying ball with high precision in real-time. But under dim light, when the contrast is low, even the pros misjudge. Now theoretical neuroscientists show that such errors are not due to sloppy neuronal computation, but the result of educated--but erroneous--guesses as the brain struggles under difficult conditions. Dim light can lead to some strange errors. In one classic example, a rhombus moving horizontally with the four corners covered appears to move vertically at low contrast (see link below with interactive animation). Similarly, car drivers underestimate their speed in foggy weather and tend to drive faster than on a sunny day. Cognitive neuroscientists have tried to exploit such observations to figure out how the brain perceives motion. Copyright © 2002 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 2159 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Penn researchers design disc to deliver medication for up to 12 months (Philadelphia, PA) -- One of the greatest difficulties in treating schizophrenia has always been helping patients to stay on their medication. Now, that problem is closer to being solved. Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine have designed an implantable device capable of delivering anti-psychotic medication for a period of five months, and continuing work at Penn indicates that such devices may work for up to a full year. The device has been proven effective in initial laboratory studies, and more research is underway (in collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine) to lead to potential clinical trials. Findings from the small-mammal study appear in the current issue of the scientific journal Neuropsychopharmacology. If the device can be demonstrated to work effectively in human subjects in future trials, it will offer a medical alternative that may relieve many patients of the threat of psychosis and chronic social instability.

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 2158 - Posted: 05.29.2002

NIDA-supported researchers from Brookhaven National Laboratory and the State University of New York at Stony Brook have found evidence in humans that dopamine plays a role in the conditioned cue response to food. Cues—seeing, smelling, and tasting something enjoyable—increase the desire for the reward without necessarily enhancing the pleasure of the reward itself. Positron emission tomography (PET) was used to measure changes in dopamine in the brains of 10 healthy adults (eight men and two women) during food and neutral stimulations. Food stimulation consisted of the participants viewing, smelling, and tasting their favorite foods but not actually eating the foods. For neutral stimulation, participants described their family genealogy in detail. Prior to and during food stimulation, participants were instructed to rate their feelings of "hunger," "desire for food," "alertness," "stimulation," and "talkativeness" on a scale of 1 to 10. Participants had fasted 16-20 hours before PET scans were conducted.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 2157 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Neuronal differences in brain regions involved in decision-making and other functions observed for the first time in chronic users of cocaine Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have detected differences in areas of the brain in chronic cocaine users. These differences were detected in regions involved in decision making, behavioral inhibition, and emotional reaction to the environment. Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and other brain mapping techniques, the researchers, led by Dr. Teresa R. Franklin, examined 13 men who had used cocaine for an average of 13 years each. They found that, compared to controls who had never used cocaine, select regions of the brains of the cocaine users had less gray matter. This decrease in critical working brain tissue ranged from 5 to 11 percent. This is the first time in either animal or human studies that differences in gray matter concentrations have been found in chronic cocaine users.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 2156 - Posted: 05.29.2002

MAASTRICHT, Netherlands, (UPI) -- People with depression are more than three times as likely to develop Parkinson's disease than people who are not depressed, a new study reveals. "This raises the question of whether depression is the first symptom of Parkinson's disease ... that appears before patients have other symptoms and a diagnosis," said Agnes Schuurman, one of the study's authors, a researcher at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. Parkinson's disease is characterized by reduced mobility, tremors and muscular rigidity. Although Parkinson's sufferers are often affected by depression, Schuurman said this is the first study to track people with depression to see how many develop Parkinson's. Copyright © 2002 United Press International

Keyword: Depression; Parkinsons
Link ID: 2155 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Folic acid may help forestall the disease By Jennifer Thomas HealthScoutNews Reporter -- Heard of homocysteine? If not, you will soon, health experts say. New research is finding homocysteine (ho-mo-SIS-teen), an amino acid, may play a role in the onset of dementia. The good news is that vitamins B6, B12 and folic acid may reduce the levels of homocysteine in the blood, says Dr. James Toole, a professor of neurology and public health science at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Copyright © 2002 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 2154 - Posted: 06.24.2010