Study hypothesizes that adolescent steroid exposure may permanently alter the production of the 'feel good' receptor BOSTON, Mass. " With more than one in ten boys admitting to using steroids, muscle- and strength-enhancing drug use among teenagers has caused considerable concern among parents and researchers over the past decade, but until now, the longer-term physiological and neurological effects of its use on the developing brain have not been fully examined. Now, new research from Northeastern University, published in the latest issue of the journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior, documents the link between adolescent anabolic steroid use and aggression and partly associates the increases in aggression with deficits in the brain"s serotonin system. The study will examine longer-term deficiencies of serotonin levels in the brain as a result of damage from steroid use, suggesting that a tendency toward aggression and impulsiveness may actually linger long after both the steroid use and the muscles and strength developed have waned. With funding from the National Institute of Health, Northeastern University psychology professor Richard Melloni and graduate student Jill Grimes examined the phenomenon of long-term steroid use through a series of experiments on groups of adolescent male Syrian hamsters.

Keyword: ADHD; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 2445 - Posted: 08.09.2002

Copyright © 2002 AP Online By BARRY BROWN, Associated Press TORONTO - A Canadian man has died in the country's first confirmed case of the human brain condition linked to "mad cow" disease, officials said Thursday. The unidentified man, said to be under 50 years old, contracted the "new variant" form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease while in Britain, which has faced several outbreaks of the disease, said Dr. Antonio Giulivi, an official with the Canadian government agency, Health Canada. "There is no evidence that mad cow disease has entered the Canadian food supply, and therefore we can reassure the Canadian public the person did not acquire the disease in Canada," Giulivi said. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 2444 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Sarah Boseley, health editor The Guardian New research which suggests a link between MMR vaccination and autism is likely to fuel the debate over the jab after it was published yesterday in the United States. The paper, published in the Journal of Biomedical Science, is from Vijendra Singh, a scientist at Utah University, who holds the view that measles vaccine could cause autism and has published a number of papers on his hypothesis. In his new study he says he has found an unusual MMR antibody in 75 children with autism which was not present in children who do not have the disorder. Dr Singh has postulated that autism could be caused by insults to the protective myelin sheath that covers nerve fibres in the brain. He believes autism is an autoimmune disorder which can be triggered when the immune system is attacked by an infectious. © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 2443 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Tim Friend, USA TODAY Humans may have to eat crow next time they use bird brain as an insult. It appears that New Caledonian crows have a knack for using tools that may be exceeded in nature only by us hairless apes. Experts are describing this tool-using behavior, reported in today's Science, as one of the most stunning examples of animal intelligence and problem-solving behavior observed so far. Crows, ravens and jays, known as corvids, are an especially clever family of birds - so smart that they're considered pests by many people in cities and suburbs, where they raid garbage cans and create all manner of mischief. New Caledonian crows of the South Pacific are known as avid tool users and frequently use leaves, twigs and feathers to catch prey. Today's fuss is over a crow named Betty, who lives at the Behavioral Ecology Research Group laboratory at Oxford University in England. A team of Oxford researchers arranged an experiment to find out whether Betty and an older bully crow named Abel could pick the right tool for a job if given a choice. The job: to snag a piece of meat from a tube using a wire. The crows had a choice between a straight and a hooked wire. (Related audio: Crows the smartest of the bird world) © Copyright 2002 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Keyword: Intelligence; Evolution
Link ID: 2442 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Electric shock is the latest method of curbing hunger and helping people lose weight. An implantable gastric stimulator device slows down peristalsis - the process of muscle contractions which forces food along the digestive tract. This means a person does not feel hungry again as quickly as they normally would. Training people to eat smaller quantities is an important part of helping the obese lose weight. In the UK, 20% of adults are classified as obese. The electric shock treatment is an alternative to stomach stapling, where the stomach or intestines are sewed or stapled together. (C) BBC

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 2441 - Posted: 08.08.2002

TUCSON, ARIZONA--Paper wasps show behavior that bears many earmarks of sleep, a study has found. The findings help challenge the notion that insects and other invertebrates do not sleep. Scientists who study sleep have focused on humans and sometimes other mammals, and they have defined sleep in terms of neural patterns from electroencephalograms (EEGs). Because most invertebrates have neural architecture that doesn’t allow for an EEG, many sleep specialists don’t consider invertebrates to truly sleep. But a handful of researchers have marshaled evidence for apparent sleep in fruit flies, scorpions, cockroaches, and honeybees. Now paper wasps have joined the club, after University of Arizona graduate student Barrett Klein took a close look at their behavior. Raising groups of the paper wasp Polistes flavus in the lab, Klein discovered that they fell quiet for most of the night, every night. During this time, the wasps breathed less frequently and their metabolism fell. Infrared imaging showed that their thoraxes, warmed by muscle movement when the wasps are active, turned cold when quiescent. And the quiescence was reversible; that is, Klein could wake the wasps up, showing they were not hibernating or in a coma. During times of quiescence, the wasps always slung their bodies low and drooped their antennas. Klein found similar behaviors in three other species of Polistes, and he says the sleeplike behavior "could be a ubiquitous phenomenon across many groups of insects." He presented his results here yesterday at the meeting of the Ecological Society of America and the Society for Ecological Restoration. Copyright © 2002 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Sleep; Evolution
Link ID: 2440 - Posted: 06.24.2010

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Complex physical learning may help children overcome some mental disabilities that result from prenatal alcohol consumption by their mothers, say researchers whose experiments led to increased wiring in the brains of young rats. In their study, infant rats were exposed to alcohol during a period of brain development (especially in the cerebellum) that is similar to that of the human third trimester of pregnancy. In adulthood, the rats improved their learning skills during a 20-day regimen of complex motor training, and generated new synapses in their cerebellum. About 0.1 percent of U.S. births involve newborns with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, characterized by a variety of physical, mental and neurological defects that often lead to behavioral, learning and mobility problems. Ten times that many children, also exposed to alcohol before birth, may not meet the diagnostic criteria for FAS but still have behavioral and brain defects that are now classified as alcohol-related developmental disorders.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 2438 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Kathleen Fackelmann, USA TODAY A study out today suggests a hormone might prompt people to eat 30% less — even when they're feasting at an all-you-can-eat buffet. This hormone, or drugs designed to act the same way, may help fight the "epidemic of obesity" in the USA and other developed nations, says researcher Stephen Bloom of the Imperial College at the Hammersmith Hospital in London. Experts say 61% of all Americans are now overweight or obese and thus are at high risk of developing heart disease, diabetes and other health problems. But Bloom and others say that such folks often face an uphill battle when it comes to body fat. He says humans evolved to stuff themselves with food in times of plenty. That meant a cushion of body fat that acted as protection in times of famine. But in a society in which cheap eats are available 24/7, that urge to eat has led to an ever-increasing number of overweight people, he says. © Copyright 2002 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Keyword: Obesity; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 2436 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By DENISE GRADY Scientists have identified a hormone that causes the sensation every dieter craves: the feeling of fullness. The hormone, Peptide YY3-36 or PYY, is made by cells in the small intestine in response to food and then circulates to the brain, where it switches off the urge to eat. "It stops you feeling hungry," said Dr. Stephen R. Bloom, a professor of endocrinology at Hammersmith Hospital at Imperial College School of Medicine in London, who led a study of the hormone that was being published today in the journal Nature. "It controls you and me after every meal we eat." Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 2435 - Posted: 08.08.2002

Simple cerebral activities such as doing a crossword can help to ward off Alzheimer's disease, says a US scientist. Neuroscientist Dr Gary Small, director of the centre for ageing at the University of California, says adopting a healthy lifestyle is an important way to minimise the risk of developing neurodegenerative diseases. This includes keeping physically active, eating a low fat diet with plenty of anti-oxidant foods such as fruit and vegetables and avoiding long-term chronic stress. But he also advocates exercising the brain by doing what he terms "mental aerobics". This can include doing crosswords, learning a new language, or writing with your left hand if you are normally right handed. Dr Small said: "We have done studies repeatedly looking at the brain activity of people at every age, and we are finding that we can see the subtle signs of Alzheimer's of people even in their thirties and forties. (C) BBC

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 2434 - Posted: 08.07.2002

By RICHARD A. FRIEDMAN, M.D. The woman fantasized about having a face-lift for years, but had an insurmountable fear of the knife. So when Botox was approved in April for cosmetic use by the Food and Drug Administration, she jumped at the opportunity. Recently divorced and a recovering alcoholic, she had just turned 48 before the first Botox injection. And like the 1.6 million Americans who used Botox last year, she hoped to recapture her youthful appearance. At about $600 a pop every four to six months, she considered this an endlessly renewable face-lift. Except for a quick sting, she barely felt the injection of Botox into her forehead and went back to work later that day. By the end of the week, she noticed the effect. Standing in front of her bathroom mirror, she was stunned to see that the deep wrinkles that scored her forehead had been erased, and that her skin was smoother. Though she was pleased by her new look, she felt ill at ease without knowing why. It was obvious later — her physical and psychological self-images were suddenly incongruent. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Emotions; Movement Disorders
Link ID: 2433 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By SANDRA BLAKESLEE DENVER, — Wildlife experts from the United States and Canada are meeting here to discuss strategies for containing the spread of chronic wasting disease, the variant of mad cow disease that kills deer and elk. The malady, once found only in the brushy foothills near Fort Collins, Colo., has now been identified in both captive and wild herds of deer and elk in Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming and the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. Some states, like New Mexico, have found only one infected animal in the wild. But Saskatchewan, for example, has diagnosed the disease in more than 100 captive animals bred for their meat and antlers. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 2432 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Push-pull between cells keeps retina sharp. HELEN PEARSON Cells in the eye keep their neighbours at arm's length, a new study reveals1. This helps to build the exquisite architecture of the retina that discerns fine details. A regular mosaic of light-sensitive cells tiles the back of the eye. The cells turn light into signals to the brain. Their precise spacing ensures that the eye can make out details in an image. As the eye develops, retina cells stretch out thin arms that interlock with their neighbours, Lucia Galli-Resta and her colleagues of the Istituto di Neuroscienze in Pisa, Italy, have now shown. Like a wire mesh, the tensed arms keep the cells spaced out. "They hold hands to keep them together and stretch arms to keep them apart," says Galli-Resta. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2002

Keyword: Vision; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 2431 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Dartmouth Medical School geneticists have found a molecular shortcut from light reception to gene activation in their work to understand biological clocks. Their research has revealed that the protein called White Collar-1 does double duty: it perceives light and then, in response to light, directly turns on a key gene called frequency, which is a central component of the clock. Biological clocks are molecularly driven and are set, or synchronized, by the daily cycles of light and dark. Using the fungus Neurospora, the Dartmouth team is studying how organisms keep track of time using this internal clock. "What we have discovered is that a protein called White Collar-1 is both the photoreceptor and the mechanism that turns on the frequency gene, all in one molecule,” explains Allan Froehlich, the lead author. “It’s the combination of the two activities that is so interesting.” Copyright 2002 Trustees of Dartmouth College

Keyword: Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 2430 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A man of vision, Michael Phelps first recognized PET imaging technology's potential -- and then fought to get it accepted Michael E. Phelps has done his share of mingling with the rich and the famous: The late entrepreneur, philanthropist, and art collector Norton Simon was a friend. But the lessons that shaped Phelps's life were the skills he mastered in the rough Irish neighborhood in Port Orchard, Wash., where he boxed and brawled -- and missed out on whatever his school had to teach about chemistry and math because he was kicked out of class. Now one of the world's most famous scientists, Phelps works at the crossroads of chemistry, biology, and math. At 62, he likes to say that his fighter's instincts got him where he is. "The world is about training and fighting," Phelps declares. "Training is a way of becoming, and fighting is about standing and delivering when the time arrives." SECOND OPINION. Phelps delivered his knockout blow in 1974, when he and postdoctoral student Ed Hoffman invented the first positron emission tomography (PET) scanner. Unlike X-rays, which display only the body's structure, PET reveals chemical and biological processes within the body. It illustrates, for example, how the brain remembers and thinks, how the heart beats, and how the pancreas synthesizes insulin. Copyright 2002, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 2429 - Posted: 08.07.2002

SUNY Buffalo's Thenkurussi Kesavadas is developing tactile-feedback systems that could let brain docs practice delicate manuevers The procedures used in brain surgery are some of the most complex in medicine, with the margin for error minimal. Yet neurosurgeons have no way to effectively practice for an operation before they cut into a patient. Thenkurussi Kesavadas hopes to change that. A professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo, Kesavadas has built a virtual-reality tool for brain docs. The system, which runs on a Windows computer, allows physicians to examine three-dimensional images of what surgery would be like. More radical still, neurosurgeons wearing a special glove wired to software Kesavadas designed receive tactile feedback that replicates what their fingers and hands would experience in the operating room. "When surgeons virtually cut the skull, they actually feel the tool vibrating in their hands. They can feel smoothness and roughness. And they say, 'Wow, this seems real!'" says Kesavadas, who's developing the brain-surgery simulator with help from neurosurgeons at the University of Miami in Florida and should go into service sometime next year. Kesavadas is a visionary on the cutting edge (for lack of a better phrase) of a medical field that has yet to get a specific name. It comprises disparate disciplines including telemedicine, robotic surgery, and three-dimensional imaging of the human body. These developing technologies, combined with powerful computers and the Internet, are on the cusp of radically altering many facets of medicine by pushing those who live by the Hippocratic oath into the realm of video games. Copyright 2002, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Robotics
Link ID: 2428 - Posted: 08.07.2002

By Celia Hall, Medical Editor After decades of inconclusive research, doctors believe they may have found out why people stammer. Research from Germany shows that persistent developmental stammering, which develops in childhood, can result from an abnormality in the left side of the brain. Dr Martin Somner and colleagues of the universities of Hamburg and Göttingen say in The Lancet that this results in a disconnection of the speech-related area of the cortex. © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2002.

Keyword: Language; Brain imaging
Link ID: 2427 - Posted: 06.24.2010

From the Science & Technology Desk INDIANAPOLIS, (UPI) -- Five mothers whose college-aged students were injured or killed by meningitis urged parents of college-bound children Wednesday to consider having them vaccinated against the potentially deadly illness -- which causes several deaths each year. "All of our kids had meningitis. Two of us have survivors, the other three lost their children to this horrible thing," said Paige Kach of Carmel, N.Y., whose son John survived but lost one leg below the knee as well as his fingers and toes after contracting the disease while at college. Two of the mothers, Lynn Bozof of Marietta, Ga., and Deb Kepferle of Lexington Park, Md., lost their sons to meningitis at college. Judy Miller of Coal City, Ill., lost her daughter to meningitis during sophomore year. Candie Benn's daughter Melanie survived the disease after contracting it freshman year but she had to undergo life-saving amputation of her arms and legs. Copyright © 2002 United Press International

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 2426 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Three young severely obese people from Turkey who could find no way to rein in their uncontrollable appetites have found the answer to their problems on the American west coast. They have become among the first people in the world to benefit from an experimental technique that is showing great promise in helping severely obese people to shed their excess weight. The treatment is based on injections of leptin, a hormone that appears to play a central role in suppressing appetite by informing the brain when the stomach is full. Doctors believe its use could form the basis of a new and highly effective way to treat severe obesity. Byrom Domsak and his two cousins flew out to Los Angeles after their cases were brought to the attention of doctors at the University of California at Los Angeles. In the 10 months that they have been receiving leptin injections, they have each shed more than half their body weight. (C) BBC

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 2424 - Posted: 08.06.2002

Americans spend nearly $33 billion a year on weight-loss products and services to combat ever-increasing waistlines. But as the prevalence of obesity keeps rising, scientists continue to search for a more thorough understanding of the factors that make some people more susceptible to weight gain than others. To that end, findings published in the current issue of the journal Science could help. Researchers have identified the mechanism behind an internal fat 'furnace' in mice that helps the animals stave off excess poundage. © 1996-2002 Scientific American, Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 2423 - Posted: 06.24.2010