Children who are poor readers appear to have a disruption in the part of their brain involved in reading phonetically, according to a sophisticated brain imaging study funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The study also found that children who read poorly but who do not receive any extra help or training eventually compensate for their disability by using other parts of the brain as backup systems for the impaired brain regions. Although most of these children eventually do learn to read, they never do so with the same fluency as do good readers. This is probably because the "backup" brain systems they use when reading apparently cannot process printed information as easily as can the brain systems primarily involved in reading. The researchers, led by Bennett Shaywitz, M.D., of the Yale University School of Medicine, published their results in the July Biological Psychiatry.

Keyword: Dyslexia
Link ID: 2422 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NewScientist.com news service Children who suffer abuse and who have a common variation in a gene linked to behaviour are much more likely to become aggressive, anti-social adults, a major new study has found. It is the first clear link between anti-social behaviour and a specific interaction of genes and environment, the researchers say. They think it could help explain why childhood mistreatment increases the risk of criminality by 50 per cent, while most abused children do not become delinquents. "This is a very important piece of work," Greg Carey, a geneticist at the University of Colorado, told Science, which has published the team's paper. "It's pretty convincing for just a single study." © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Aggression; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 2421 - Posted: 06.24.2010

John Travis A promising class of anticancer-drug candidates, which work by depriving growing tumors of needed blood vessels, also prevent obesity or cause dramatic weight loss in rodents. This discovery rests upon the unappreciated fact that fat tissue, like a tumor, requires an increased blood supply to grow, says Maria A. Rupnick of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, who led the study on the drugs. "It's clearly a potential way to think about treating obesity," says Marc L. Reitman, director of obesity research at Merck Research Laboratories in Rahway, N.J. "I think the paper is very interesting, novel, and provocative." Rupnick works with M. Judah Folkman of Children's Hospital in Boston, who originated the once-controversial idea that a growing tumor requires the creation of blood vessels in a process called angiogenesis. The new study stemmed from Rupnick's desire to study angiogenesis in healthy adult tissues. The conventional view, however, was that because most adult tissues and organs maintain a stable size, adult animals rarely need new blood vessels except during specialized circumstances, such as wound healing and reproduction. However, Rupnick had an epiphany several years ago while recalling her own decade-old work to isolate cells that form blood vessels in fat tissue. From Science News, Vol. 162, No. 5, Aug. 3, 2002, p. 67. Copyright ©2002 Science Service. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 2420 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By LYDIA DENWORTH The debate on hormone replacement therapy has centered on its effects on heart disease and cancer. But at a recent medical conference in Seattle, researchers presented a hormone study that focused on a different question: sleep. The researchers, from Stanford University, found that estrogen improved the breathing of postmenopausal women who had sleep apnea, a condition involving repeated breathing pauses. The study, by Dr. Tracy Kuo, a postdoctoral fellow, and Dr. Rachel Manber, the director of the insomnia program at the Stanford Sleep Disorders Center, was small, but it is one of a number of recent investigations into how sex hormones may disturb or improve sleep. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 2419 - Posted: 08.06.2002

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD Two ancient skulls, one from central Africa and the other from the Black Sea republic of Georgia, have shaken the human family tree to its roots, sending scientists scrambling to see if their favorite theories are among the fallen fruit. Probably so, according to paleontologists, who may have to make major revisions in the human genealogy and rethink some of their ideas about the first migrations out of Africa by human relatives. Yet, despite all the confusion and uncertainty the skulls have caused, scientists speak in superlatives of their potential for revealing crucial insights in the evidence-disadvantaged field of human evolution. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 2418 - Posted: 08.06.2002

Like a double-edged sword, radiation therapy for brain cancer wipes out tumors but sometimes causes cognitive decline as well. Now researchers have found that, in rat brains, the treatment prevents new neurons from growing. Further findings suggest that dampening the brain's inflammatory response to radiation therapy may help avert such damage. To destroy brain tumors, neurosurgeons give patients a strong dose of radiation that’s supposed to kill the fastest growing cells--those in the tumor--while leaving slow-growing neurons alone. Years later, however, patients cured of brain cancer often lose their ability to make new memories. Researchers suspected that radiation therapy damages the stem cells that give rise to new neurons, which are concentrated in the hippocampus, a brain region necessary for storing memories. Copyright © 2002 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Neurogenesis; Stem Cells
Link ID: 2417 - Posted: 06.24.2010

- A crucial piece of the puzzle into how the eye becomes wired to the brain has been revealed by scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., and UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. In findings published in today’s edition of Neuron , the researchers report that a certain class of Eph receptors and ephrin ligands - proteins that cause cells to either repel or attract each other - control how nerve connections from the developing eye form maps that present what we see to visual centers in the brain. Neurobiologists had long sought to answer how neural maps are established. © 2002 The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Vision
Link ID: 2416 - Posted: 06.24.2010

New insights into how language warps the brain By W. Wayt Gibbs "Liver." The word rises from the voice box and passes the lips. It beats the air, enters an ear canal, sets nerve cells firing. Electrochemical impulses stream into the auditory cortex of a listener's brain. But then what? How does the brain's neural machinery filter that complex stream of auditory input to extract the uttered word: "liver"--or was it "river," or perhaps "lever"? Researchers at the Acoustical Society of America meeting in June reported brain imaging studies and clinical experiments that expose new details of how the first language we learn warps everything we hear later. Some neuroscientists think they are close to explaining, at a physical level, why many native Japanese speakers hear "liver" as "river," and why it is so much easier to learn a new language as a child than as an adult. At the ASA conference, Paul Iverson of University College London presented maps of what people hear when they listen to sounds that span the continuum between the American English phonemes /ra/ and /la/. Like many phonemes, /ra/ and /la/ differ mainly in the three or four frequencies that carry the most energy. Iverson had his computer synthesize sounds in which the second and third most dominant frequencies varied in regular intervals, like dots on a grid. He then asked English, German and Japanese speakers to identify each phoneme and to rate its quality. © 1996-2002 Scientific American, Inc. All rights reserved

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 2415 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY President Bush raised a lot of hope but also generated dire warnings a year ago Friday when he decided to limit the use of federal money for research on embryonic stem cells. Now it's clear that neither the hopes nor the fears have fully materialized. Stem cells, found in all human embryos at their earliest stages of development, are the undifferentiated cells capable of turning into all cells the body needs for development. If science could harness their potential, researchers see the prospect of harvesting the cells to treat some of the world's cruelest killers — teaching stem cells to become new brain cells for Parkinson's patients and to form spinal cords for the paralyzed and new insulin-producing cells for diabetics. But harvesting the cells destroys the blastocyst, the 200-cell hollow ball that develops four to six days after sperm meets egg, while creating an ethical issue for many and a serious moral concern for Bush, who believes life begins at conception. © Copyright 2002 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Keyword: Stem Cells; Parkinsons
Link ID: 2414 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Calming brain circuit could treat anxieties. HELEN PEARSON Brain chemicals similar to those in cannabis wipe out bad memories - and could point to new drugs for severe anxiety. The chemicals are called cannabinoids. Mice with faulty cannabinoids can't forget traumatic events, Beat Lutz of the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany and his colleagues have found1. They suggest that the chemicals wipe fearful memories from the brain. Drugs that boost cannabinoids could help people who suffer post-traumatic stress disorder, phobias and panic attacks, say the researchers. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2002

Keyword: Emotions; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 2413 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Mainstream psychiatric outcast ponders parasitic mental illness Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle. An unknown infectious agent may be responsible for a five-fold increase in mental illness over the last two centuries, a controversial psychiatrist proposes in a new book. The claim by Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, a noted psychiatrist-author and scourge of mainstream psychiatry, challenges common explanations that mental illness is caused by a combination of genetic factors and environmental influences, such as family upbringing. Torrey's new book also defies two schools of academic thought: One is that rates of at least one major type of mental illness, schizophrenia, have sharply declined or remained stable. ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle.

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 2412 - Posted: 06.24.2010

One of the brain's most important chemical messengers has led Johns Hopkins School of Medicine researchers on a wild ride. Primarily interested in how and why nerve cells die in neurodegenerative diseases like Lou Gerhig's disease, the scientists now find themselves with a new rat model of epilepsy, a disease characterized not by cell death, but by rapid and uncontrolled "firing" of brain cells. Aware that extra amounts of the messenger can kill brain cells by over-stimulating them, the scientists thought preventing it from getting into cells might lead to cell death. But blocking one of the messenger's main transporters didn't kill nerve cells; instead, the rats developed epilepsy, complete with periods of staring and "freezing," the scientists report in the August 1 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. "We wanted to see how reducing transport of this messenger affected other brain chemicals and the brain itself, but we hadn't expected it to result in epilepsy," says Jeffrey Rothstein, M.D., Ph.D., professor of neurology and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins. "Now we need to track it down in people to see if the same mechanism is involved in the human condition."

Keyword: Epilepsy
Link ID: 2411 - Posted: 08.05.2002

Cannabinoid receptor important in erasing aversive memories Using the model of fear conditioning in mice, researchers of the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry together with colleagues from Naples were able to show that the cannabinoid receptor is important in erasing fear behavior. The researchers report in the current issue of the journal Nature 1st August 2002 that in mouse mutants lacking the cannabinoid receptor CB1, erasure of fear behavior evoked by an aversive acoustic sound was considerably lessened compared to normal control mice. The researchers hope that these findings will lead to new approaches for the treatments of phobias, posttraumatic stress disorders, and certain forms of chronic pain. It is part of our evolutionary heritage that we are alert to potentially dangerous situations, such as confined spaces, wide open spaces, lofty heights, or situations where we are confronted by animals perceived to be repulsive or possibly dangerous for us, such as spiders or snakes. Although it is important to be aware of potential and real threats, it is equally important to react appropriately to them. In most human beings, the initial moment of alertness and the subsequent reactions are correctly balanced, and they are able to relax rather fast and to react well-planned if the expected "disaster" has not occurred.

Keyword: Emotions; Stress
Link ID: 2410 - Posted: 08.05.2002

When you gaze at a bowl of fruit, why don't some of the bananas look red, some of the apples look purple and some of the grapes look yellow? This question isn't as nonsensical as it may sound. When your brain processes the information coming from your eyes, it stores the information about an object's shape in one place and information about its color in another. So it's something of a miracle that the shapes and colors of each fruit are combined seamlessly into distinct objects when you look at them. Exactly how the brain recombines these different types of visual information after it has broken them apart is called the "binding problem" and is currently the subject of considerable controversy in the neuroscience community. But the results of a brain mapping experiment, published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on July 29, provide significant new support for the theory that attention is the glue that cements visual information together as people scan complex visual scenes.

Keyword: Attention; Vision
Link ID: 2409 - Posted: 08.05.2002

Study shows damaged brain finds new ways to function Toronto, ONT. -- People who have suffered a moderate to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) can recover some of their memory function by using alternate brain networks, according to a new study in the August 2002 issue of the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry. TBI, often sustained in traffic accidents, is one of the most common causes of disability in young adults. People with TBI frequently complain of memory problems that interfere with their daily function and ability to work, yet many eventually recover memory function and return to work or school. The study, led by scientist Brian Levine of The Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, compared brain function in two groups of adults -- six patients who had suffered a moderate to severe TBI four years earlier (with several days of coma in some cases)and made a strong recovery, and 11 healthy adults who matched the TBI group in age and education.

Keyword: Regeneration
Link ID: 2408 - Posted: 08.05.2002

Anorexia nervosa mainly afflicts young women. The sufferers become obsessed with the importance of losing weight to the point where they become skeletal. A fatal outcome is all too common in this serious disorder. To decrease their weight, sufferers either restrict their eating only (restricting anorexia nervosa), or vomit what they eat. Stress and anxiety are emotions experienced intensely by sufferers with anorexia nervosa. Stress and anxiety involve the norepinephrine neurochemical system. The NET is a protein that plays a role in this system by shipping the chemical called norepinephrine back into neurons. The NET gene provides the instructions to make the NET. An on-off switch (promoter) in the NET gene determines how many NETs are made. Variation in the DNA sequence of the promoter may increase or decrease the number of NETs being produced. Since this may begin disease processes, the researchers studied the DNA sequence of the promoter. They found a big piece of DNA in normal people which had never been observed before. This DNA was found in two different sizes: one long and one short. When sufferers with the restricting type of anorexia nervosa, and their parents were tested, the parents were shown to pass on the long form significantly more often than the short form to their children. This shows that a person who inherits the long form has an increased chance of developing the restricting type of anorexia nervosa.

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 2407 - Posted: 08.05.2002

Copyright © 2002 Scripps Howard News Service By LICIA ROCA, Sacramento Bee - P.J. Anderson is a napper. Three days a week she steals away from her office to catch a 10-minute afternoon snooze. "A power nap. That's what I call it," said Anderson, owner of OP Contract in San Francisco. "The reality is, I need to regroup a bit before I can put in a 10- or 12-hour day." Four years ago, Anderson saw her employees' fatigued faces and realized she wasn't the only one needing a break. She created a "wellness room" equipped with an alarm clock, daybed and blankets. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 2406 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Copyright © 2002 AP Online By LISA RATHKE, Associated Press ESSEX, Vt. (- It's nearly as fast as the most advanced computer, but uses a fraction of the energy. It simultaneously zaps information to thousands of points and is equipped to correct itself. It's not made of silicon and it came long before the computer chip. It is the human brain. In searching for new ways to advance computers, engineers are looking to man's gray matter for inspiration. And while comparing the two, they often wonder why a computer can't act more like a brain. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 2405 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists are hopeful they can produce a drug to reduce the addictive effects of morphine, but keeping its painkilling properties. For years, researchers have been hunting a way to block the brain response which leads to dependence on morphine, and the street drug heroin, which works in a similar way. All attempts so far have failed, even if the addiction process was diminished, the drugs caused dangerous side-effects. However, now a research group from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in the US, believe they have found another route to block addition. In mice, their method meant that much higher doses of the drug were needed before dependence started to emerge. However, an addiction researcher from the UK has warned that much more work will be needed before the principle can be turned into a drug for humans. (C) BBC

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 2404 - Posted: 07.30.2002

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL--University of Minnesota researchers have found that a nontoxic bile acid produced in the body prevents apoptosis, or programmed cell death, in mice with Huntington's disease. This finding, to be published July 29 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (PNAS), may eventually lead to a treatment for Huntington's disease (HD) in humans. HD is an untreatable neurological disorder caused by selective and progressive degeneration of neural cells. In the study, led by Walter Low, Ph.D., professor of neurosurgery in the university's Medical School, a dose of tauroursodeoxycholic acid (TUDCA) was administered subcutaneously once every third day for six weeks in mice with the HD gene. Researchers found TUDCA was able to cross the blood / brain barrier, something many molecules are unable to do, resulting in decreased apoptosis in the section of the brain affected by HD and improving the neurological cell function in the mice. "We're extremely encouraged by the neuroprotective function of TUDCA in Huntington's disease and will be examining its potential in future studies," said Low.

Keyword: Huntingtons
Link ID: 2403 - Posted: 07.30.2002