© 2002 Psychiatric Times. All rights reserved. by Kenneth J. Bender, Pharm.D., M.A. Psychiatric Times May 2002 Vol. XIX Issue 5 Progress in developing medications and strategies for treating addiction were juxtaposed with the challenges of implementing accessible and effective treatment programs at The State of the Art in Addiction Medicine conference conducted by the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) Nov. 1-3, 2001, in Washington, D.C. The conference, themed "From Molecules to Managed Care," was co-sponsored by the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (SAT), the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 2024 - Posted: 06.24.2010

© 2002 Psychiatric Times. All rights reserved. by Adekola O. Alao, M.D., MRCPsych Psychiatric Times May 2002 Vol. XIX Issue 5 Anticonvulsant drugs are gradually gaining ground in psychiatry and present a bewildering range of psychopharmacological possibilities. Anticonvulsants are most commonly and widely used in the treatment of mania in bipolar disorder (BD) (Tables 1, 2 ). The recurrent nature of this illness may have a cumulative detrimental effect on the patient's functioning and may affect treatment. Lithium, olanzapine (Zyprexa), chlorpromazine (Thorazine) and valproic acid (divalproex sodium [Depakote]) are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of mania in BD. However, there has been considerable interest in the potential use of antiepileptics other than divalproex as mood stabilizers. The use of anticonvulsants in the treatment of other psychiatric symptoms -- such as impulsivity and aggression -- that cut across various psychiatric diagnoses has been explored.

Keyword: Emotions; Aggression
Link ID: 2023 - Posted: 06.24.2010

© 2002 Psychiatric Times. All rights reserved. by Stefano Erzegovesi, M.D. Psychiatric Times May 2002 Vol. XIX Issue 5 Over the past decade, reports about obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have gradually moved from the traditional and somewhat pessimistic points of view to a more defined and optimistic line of research: the "rare and intractable illness" has now become a paradigm for valid hypotheses in neurobiology and clinical psychopharmacology. Data in the literature support the so-called "serotonin (5-HT) hypothesis" of OCD (Barr et al., 1992): peripheral markers of serotonin function (Bastani et al., 1991), pharmacologic challenge studies with serotonin agonists (Erzegovesi et al., 2001b) and, above all, drug-response data from serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SRIs) (Greist et al., 1995). According to the serotonin hypothesis, patients with OCD have a dysregulation in the serotonergic system, with a hypersensitivity of postsynaptic 5-HT receptors, which could account for a different mechanism of action of SRIs in OCD (Billett et al., 1997; Zohar et al., 1987). For example, onset of therapeutic action is 10 to 12 weeks in OCD, compared to three to four weeks for mood disorders.

Keyword: OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Link ID: 2022 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Surprising effects triggered deep in neural network Carl T. Hall, Chronicle Science Writer Brain surgeons are no longer content with mere cutting or burning. Now,they are increasingly turning to implanted electrical devices -- battery- powered pacemakers for the brain -- to tweak faulty neural circuits. Electrical stimulation, or "neuromodulation" as the technique is called, is frequently used for Parkinson's and other movement disorders, and spinal cord stimulation is an accepted option for intractable back and limb pain. Now, the approach is moving into new territory following the discovery that a little electrical stimulation, judiciously applied, can have some surprising effects. ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 2021 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By NATALIE ANGIER Midway through a honeybee's fleeting, bittersweet, and, yes, busy little life, a momentous transformation occurs: the 2-week-old worker must abandon her cloistered career as a hive-keeping nurse, and venture out into the world to forage. She must learn to navigate over great distances at 12 miles per hour, select the finest flowers, assemble bits of pollen and droplets of nectar into a load nearly as heavy as she is, and then find her way back home. Once there, she must convey the coordinates of her discovery to her sisters in the classic cartographic waggle, the bee dance. And all this behavioral complexity is packaged in a brain no bigger than the loop of a letter b printed on this page. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Animal Migration; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 2020 - Posted: 05.07.2002

You may vividly remember your grade-school playmates or even the first day at kindergarten. But experiences before your third birthday most likely lie under a mist of oblivion. Researchers now provide evidence that language is the key: Children can only describe memories using words they knew at the time those memories were stored. Developmental psychologists have puzzled for centuries over why we forget about our earliest childhood experiences, a phenomenon called childhood amnesia. As children's language develops at about the same time, some researchers suspected a possible link between the two developmental milestones. To test this connection, developmental psychologists Gabrielle Simcock and Harlene Hayne at the University of Otago, New Zealand, exposed children to a unique event at a time when they were barely able to speak. They visited children between 2 and 3 years old at their homes and brought a memorable toy along: the magic shrinking machine. This humongous box featuring handles, knobs, and quirky sounds miraculously shrinks big toys into small ones. After the pull of a lever and turn of a handle, toys such as a teddy bear disappear. Accompanied by flashing lights and bells and whistles, another door opens and a shrunken teddy pops out. On the same visit, Hayne and Simcock carefully tested the toddlers' vocabulary. Copyright © 2002 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Language; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 2019 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists have discovered the gene they believe plays a key role in triggering epilepsy in young people. Dr Guy Rouleau and colleagues at McGill University Health Centre Research Institute in Montreal, found that mutations in the gene GABRA could cause juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME). This is one of the 'classical' epilepsy syndromes and typically begins in early adolescence. Classical epilepsies affect an estimated 0.4% of the population and JME accounts for a quarter of those. The researchers identified the gene by carrying out a study on a unique French-Canadian family. (C) BBC

Keyword: Epilepsy; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 2018 - Posted: 05.06.2002

Some people's blood contains cells from a sibling. Others are two individuals rolled into one. Yet more carry a distinct mutation in only parts of their bodies. Helen Pearson investigates chimaerism and mosaicism. HELEN PEARSON Eight years ago in Britain, a boy was born who, genetically, was two people. He was formed when two eggs, fertilized by two different sperm, fused into one embryo inside his mother's womb. He was an unremarkable baby. But as a toddler, doctors discovered that he was a hermaphrodite - what was originally diagnosed as an undescended testis turned out to be an ovary, a fallopian tube and part of a uterus. Further investigation revealed that some parts of his body were genetically female but the rest, which contained a different combination of his parents' genes, was male1. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2002

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Autism
Link ID: 2017 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Natural Color Works Best -- There's No Advantage For Falsely Colored Images WASHINGTON - If a picture is worth a thousand words, a picture with natural colors may be worth a million, memory-wise. Psychologists have documented that "living color" does more than appeal to the senses. It also boosts memory for scenes in the natural world. The findings, reported in the May issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition , published by the American Psychological Association (APA), shed light on how the visual system efficiently exploits color information. Conceivably, by hanging an extra "tag" of data on visual scenes, color helps us to process and store images more efficiently than colorless (black and white) scenes, and as a result to remember them better, too. In Europe, a trio of psychologists conducted five experiments (participants, in order, numbered 36, 34, 31, 20 and 20) to explore color's role in memory for natural scenes such as forests, rocks and flowers. In the basic experiment, participants looked at 48 photographs, half in color and half in black and white. Then, they viewed the same 48 images randomly mixed with 48 new images, and indicated if they had seen (or not) each picture. Participants remembered the colored natural scenes significantly better than they remembered black and white images, regardless of how long they saw the images. © PsycNET 2002 American Psychological Association

Keyword: Vision; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 2016 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Copyright © 2002 AP Online By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer An ordinary antibiotic slowed the progression of Lou Gehrig's disease in mice, suggesting a potential new approach for treating people, researchers report. The disease, formally known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS, attacks nerve cells that control movement. As these cells degenerate, an affected person becomes progressively paralyzed. Most cases appear between the ages of 40 and 70, and death follows an average of four years after symptoms appear. The antibiotic, minocycline, was shown recently to prolong the lives of mice with a version of Huntington's disease, another neurodegenerative disorder. It is now being tested against Huntington's in people. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease
Link ID: 2015 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Drugs of the future could be inhaled through the nose rather than swallowed or injected, scientists have suggested. A study carried out by Dr Jan Born and colleagues at the University of Lubeck has found that sniffing some types of medication allows them to affect the brain much more quickly. They believe the discovery could help to improve the treatment of patients with brain diseases and conditions, including Alzheimer's and perhaps depression. However, they have warned that more research is needed before sniffing could become a viable way of administering medication. (C) BBC

Keyword: Depression; Alzheimers
Link ID: 2014 - Posted: 05.06.2002

By MICHAEL WINERIP THOSE who try to reform New York State's troubled and badly underfinanced mental health system know it is a great help come budget time if some innocent people have died. In 1995, 63-year-old Soon Sin was pushed to her death on the New York City subway tracks by a mentally ill man with a violent history who had escaped from a state mental hospital. Newspaper articles revealed shoddy security at the state hospitals — and suddenly Gov. George E. Pataki found the money to correct the problem. In 1999, Kendra Webdale, 32, was killed by Andrew Goldstein, a schizophrenic man who had been repeatedly identified as dangerous. The New York Times discovered that for years, Mr. Goldstein had sought help from an overloaded system — and suddenly, Governor Pataki found an extra $215 million to hire more case managers and build more supervised housing. And now comes the latest sad chapter, a series of three articles in The Times describing the neglect and abuse of thousands of mentally ill men and women warehoused in for-profit adult homes that are every bit as awful as the back wards of state hospitals were half a century ago, when the landmark novel "Snake Pit" was written. Suicidal people left unsupervised have committed suicide; during summers, residents in sweltering rooms with no fans have died of heat-related causes; poor screening allowed a dangerous resident to kill his timid roommate. And nearly 1,000 recent deaths have gone uninvestigated; a third of the dead were under 60. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Depression
Link ID: 2013 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Promise and peril in a marriage of brains and silicon By Nell Boyce Except for those odd little backpacks, the rats seem no creepier than usual. They climb trees, run through pipes, and scamper across tables. But they aren't following the usual rodent urges. These rats are moving under remote control, reacting to commands radioed to three thin electrodes in their brains. The signals tell them which way to turn–and encourage them by delivering electrical jolts to their pleasure centers. It is a tour de force with unsettling implications, and not just for rats. "It was kind of amazing to see," says researcher Sanjiv Talwar of the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn. "We didn't imagine that it would be that accurate." The success, reported last week in Nature, conjures up visions of roborat search-and-rescue squads. It may also advance a long-sought goal in humans: linking the brains of people paralyzed by disease or injury to robots that could act for them. To be really useful, such devices would have to give sensory feedback to the brains of their users. That's what Talwar and his colleagues achieved with the rats, steering them left or right with impulses that made them feel as if someone were touching their whiskers. The feat is just the latest in a series of demonstrations suggesting that brains could meld with machines faster than you might think. Monkeys have moved robot arms with signals from their brains. Neural implants have also given a few severely disabled patients control over a computer cursor and delivered "sound" right to the brains of some deaf people. Yet it isn't just the paranoid who worry that such technologies could be used for brain enhancement rather than therapy, or that the mating of mind and machine could turn people into something akin to roborats. © 2002 U.S.News & World Report Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 2012 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Even simple movements, such as picking up food to eat, can disappear when an accident or injury causes the loss of a limb or damage to the spinal cord. Now, following years of research, scientists have developed systems that can bypass the loss or damage by directly interpreting an animal's brain signals and launching movement in robotic limbs. The advances may lead to new ways to help disabled people regain mobility. Zip, zap, zing. Pure mental power propels a robotic arm to reach out and clutch an apple. This scenario once seemed more relevant to a science fiction movie script than a scientific study. But over the past three decades a better understanding of how the brain controls movement urged many scientists to seriously scrutinize the notion of thought-driven artificial limbs. Most recently researchers translated their knowledge into the development of systems that can interpret an animal's brain signals and launch movement in robotic devices. The new advances are leading to: Copyright © 2002 Society for Neuroscience

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 2010 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition A little ground squirrel has revealed a slumbering secret of hibernating mammals. True hibernators, such as ground squirrels, marmots and chipmunks, regularly wake themselves from deep sleep. This didn't seem to make sense because it uses up huge amounts of valuable stored energy. But researchers have now found that they do it to fire up their immune systems and carry out a systems check for parasites and pathogens. Small mammals hibernate to conserve energy when food is scarce during long, cold winters. While larger creatures such as bears and badgers go into a state of torpor, in which their body temperature drops for short periods, true hibernators cool right down. Their temperature often drops as low as 5 °C for weeks on end. California's golden-mantled ground squirrel (Spermophilus lateralis ) is a champion hibernator. For five to six months each winter it spends most of the time with its heart ticking over at just two beats a minute. But roughly once a week, it wakes up and for 12 to 16 hours its body temperature rises to 37 °C. The wake-up periods use up to 80 per cent of the animal's winter energy budget. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 2009 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Susan Milius A Brooklyn-based research team has wired a rat's brain so that someone at a laptop computer can steer the animal through mazes and over rubble. The research gives a glimpse of the possibilities for training animals by sending cues and rewards directly to their brains, says Sanjiv Talwar of the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center. In the May 2 Nature , he and his colleagues predict their accomplishment could inspire novel approaches to land mine detection or search-and-rescue missions. The project grew out of research to develop new types of prostheses for paralyzed people that will use electric impulses sent directly to and from the brain. In 1999, coauthor John Chapin and his colleagues at the medical center demonstrated that signals from a rat's brain could move a robotic arm. From Science News, Vol. 161, No. 18, May 4, 2002, p. 276. Copyright ©2002 Science Service. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 2008 - Posted: 06.24.2010

— Researchers have discovered that astrocytes — brain cells once thought to be little more than a component of the supportive scaffold for neurons — may actually play a starring role in triggering the maturation and proliferation of adult neural stem cells. The studies also suggest that growth factors produced by astrocytes may be critical in regenerating brain or spinal tissue that has been damaged by trauma or disease. The discovery that astrocytes are important for neuronal maturation, or neurogenesis, was reported in the May 2, 2002, issue of the journal Nature by Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Charles F. Stevens and colleagues Fred H. Gage and HHMI research associate Hong-jun Song at The Salk Institute. Neurons are the key information-carrying cells in the central nervous system. All neurons, as well as other types of brain cells, arise from immature neural stem cells, which have the potential to develop into any kind of cell in the central nervous system. ©2002 Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Keyword: Glia; Regeneration
Link ID: 2005 - Posted: 06.24.2010

BOSTON(AScribe Newswire) -- In a study of suicidal behavior of 246 women with eating disorders over a span of 8.6 years, Debra L. Franko, an associate professor of counseling psychology at Northeastern University's Bouve College of Health Sciences, and her colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), found that women with anorexia nervosa are 57 times more likely to commit suicide than the expected rate for other women in the same age and racial groups. Eating disorder patients who are more psychiatrically ill were found to be at a greater risk to attempt suicide. Franko's research was chosen by the Academy for Eating Disorders to be presented at the International Conference on Eating Disorders, happening April 25-28 in Boston. In the 246 women studied at MGH, 51 women had anorexia nervosa restricting subtype (ANR), 85 women had anorexia nervosa, binge-purge subtype (ANBP), and 110 women had bulimia nervosa (BN). Four subjects (who were all diagnosed with anorexia nervosa at the start of the study) died by suicide, resulting in an elevated standardized mortality ratio of 56.9 for the anorexia nervosa subgroup. A total of 58 of the 246 subjects reported at least one suicide attempt during the course of the study, and of these, 32 made multiple attempts. Suicide attempts occurred in 21 percent of the ANR subjects, 31 percent of those with ANBP, and 19 percent of the BN sufferers.

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 2004 - Posted: 05.04.2002

NewScientist.com news service Variations in a key gene might explain why some people turn to alcohol when they are stressed, a German study suggests. Mice lacking the gene started to drink three times more alcohol than normal mice after they suffered a stressful experience. Six months later, they still drank significantly more. The gene is for CRH1, a type of receptor in the corticotropin-releasing hormone system in the brain. This system mediates hormonal and behavioural responses to stress. The CRH1 receptor has previously been linked to stress-related psychiatric disorders. "Patients with alterations in this gene may be particularly susceptible to stress, and may respond with drinking," says Rainier Spanagel of the University of Heidelberg, who led the work. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 2003 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — Romance in a relationship, such as unexpected phone calls, a surprise box of chocolates or a bouquet of flowers, may have more to do with biology than cupid's capriciousness. A new study suggests that men pour on the romance when women reach fertility peeks in their ovulation cycle as a strategy for keeping track of their mates and ensuring that they don't fall for other fellows. Findings are published in the current Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences journal. Copyright © 2002 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 2002 - Posted: 06.24.2010