By Barbara Feder Ostrov Mercury News Fifty years ago, physician supply catalogs carried a wide array of sugar pills and tonics in all kinds of shapes and colors. Known as placebos, these were sham medicines, inert substances that sometimes made sick patients feel better, especially when they came from a kindly, authoritative family doctor. Physicians no longer dispense sugar pills, of course. But the placebo effect remains a powerful force in modern medicine, a mysterious victory of mind over body that seems to flout the cherished objectivity of medical science. New brain-imaging studies show for the first time how and where the placebo effect kindles changes in the brain, renewing interest in the topic. Researchers are searching for ways healers can work with the placebo effect, rather than against it, to help patients -- an endeavor in keeping with Americans' keen interest in alternative medicine.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 1972 - Posted: 04.30.2002

By Marianne Szegedy-Maszak In the darkened office of Lexicor Health Systems in Boulder, Colo., 11-year-old Shannon closes her dark brown eyes and sits quietly in her chair. She is wearing a multicolored electrode-studded cap, which transmits the electrical impulses of her brain to an electroencephalogram, or EEG. Behind her on a computer screen scrawl 19 wild lines that represent the activity in several regions of her brain. One would never surmise from Shannon's Zen-like demeanor what the brain scan is detecting inside her head: that she is one of the more than 2 million children in America who suffer from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The result of Shannon's session will be a QEEG–a "quantified EEG" that will allow diagnosticians to statistically compare her brain with thousands of others. What they are interested in, specifically, is the proportion of low-frequency theta brain waves to much faster beta waves in a region of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. Studies have suggested abnormalities in both these rhythms associated with attention–or lack of it. Children produce a lot of low-frequency theta brain rhythms when they struggle to concentrate, and when their concentration is overwhelmed by too much stimulation they produce the speedier beta waves. By comparing what Shannon's brain does with both "normal" brains and those of others who have been diagnosed with ADHD, researchers at Lexicor are hoping for the first time to provide a quantitative tool to help identify this vexing disorder. Genetic mystery. The QEEG may never become the "gold standard" in diagnosing ADHD. But it illustrates how increasingly sophisticated understanding of brain activity may offer clinicians greater confidence in their diagnosis. It may also hold out promise for the 20 percent of children diagnosed with ADHD who do not respond to the usual stimulant treatment–by identifying a pool of symptoms that they all might share. Clearly, genes play a role in ADHD, because it runs strongly in families, but no ADHD gene has yet been identified. Lacking that kind of definitive diagnostic tool, a deeper understanding of the neurology underlying the disorder could help clinicians untangle true ADHD from accompanying disorders and disorders that resemble it. Indeed, QEEG is one of several brain-scanning technologies now being deployed to home in on the unique properties of the distracted mind. © 2002 U.S.News & World Report Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: ADHD
Link ID: 1971 - Posted: 06.24.2010

FORTUNE examines business leaders and artists who have gone beyond the limitations of dyslexia. By Betsy Morris Consider the following four dead-end kids. One was spanked by his teachers for bad grades and a poor attitude. He dropped out of school at 16. Another failed remedial English and came perilously close to flunking out of college. The third feared he'd never make it through school--and might not have without a tutor. The last finally learned to read in third grade, devouring Marvel comics, whose pictures provided clues to help him untangle the words. These four losers are, respectively, Richard Branson, Charles Schwab, John Chambers, and David Boies. Billionaire Branson developed one of Britain's top brands with Virgin Records and Virgin Atlantic Airways. Schwab virtually created the discount brokerage business. Chambers is CEO of Cisco. Boies is a celebrated trial attorney, best known as the guy who beat Microsoft. © Copyright 2002 Time Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Dyslexia
Link ID: 1970 - Posted: 06.24.2010

For some people, overeating is not the only culprit By Myrna E. Watanabe Sedentary people who enjoy high-caloric diets—adults and children alike—are getting dangerously fat.1 Along with the increased weight comes complications. Take obesity, for example. It is a risk factor for Type 2 diabetes. Once considered a strictly adult disease, Type 2 diabetes is now diagnosed in both preadolescents and adolescents.2 Some researchers believe that the interaction between obesity-related genes and society's increasingly sedentary lifestyle and fat-filled diet is to blame. The questions of when and how the environmental triggers set off the genes have, as of yet, no answers. The first hint that obesity has a genetic rather than a totally behavioral basis came in 1994 when Rockefeller University researchers identified the obese gene and cloned the murine version of it.3 The mice were obese, suffered from Type 2 diabetes, and lacked the protein leptin which appears to act primarily on the hypothalamus, where it influences appetite and energy use. The discovery opened the genetic floodgates. "[It] was the paradigm shift that turned [obesity] into a tractable problem," remarks clinical endocrinologist Stephen O'Rahilly, University of Cambridge, who studies the genetics of childhood obesity. O'Rahilly's research had focused on severe insulin resistance in children; after the discovery, he shifted to investigating leptin deficiency in extremely obese youngsters and their families. "Among the first kids we looked at, we did find a pair of first cousins who were [leptin] deficient," says O'Rahilly. In total, they found three families with this deficit; the children had extremely large appetites. "It was the first demonstration that a human being could become severely obese on the basis of a simple genetic defect," he states.4 O'Rahilly points out that these children are not comparable to the average, overeating child in the United States or United Kingdom; the leptin-deficient children would become obese as long as food was available. But even more remarkable than the gene's discovery and its effect in people was the decreased appetites seen in these children when given leptin therapy. O'Rahilly is currently preparing this research for publication. © Copyright 2002, The Scientist, Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Obesity; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 1969 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY Randolph Maddix, a schizophrenic who lived at a private home for the mentally ill in Brooklyn, was often left alone to suffer seizures, his body crumpling to the floor of his squalid room. The home, Seaport Manor, is responsible for 325 starkly ill people, yet many of its workers could barely qualify for fast-food jobs. So it was no surprise that Mr. Maddix, 51, was dead for more than 12 hours before an aide finally checked on him. His back, curled and stiff with rigor mortis, had to be broken to fit him into a body bag. At Anna Erika, a similar adult home in Staten Island entrusted by the state to care for the mentally ill, three other residents had previously jumped to their deaths when a distraught Lisa Valante, 37, sought help. But it was after 5 p.m. and, as usual, the residents, some so sick they cannot tie their shoes, were expected to fend for themselves. No one stopped Ms. Valante, then, from flinging herself out a seventh-floor window. Sometimes at these homes, the greatest threat can be the person who sleeps in the next bed. Despite a history of violent behavior, Erik Chapman was accepted at Park Manor in Brooklyn. After four years of roaming the place with a knife, Mr. Chapman stabbed his roommate, Gregory Ridges, more than 20 times. At last, Mr. Chapman was sent to a secure psychiatric facility. Mr. Ridges was sent to Cypress Hills Cemetery at the age of 35. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Alzheimers
Link ID: 1968 - Posted: 04.29.2002

Written by Laszlo Dosa, Voiced by Faith Lapidus Orlando, Florida Scientists already know how to make injured or severed nerve cells, neurons, regenerate and resume carrying messages from the brain to other parts of the body. But, as Johns Hopkins researcher Ronald Schnaar explains, not all nerve cells respond to such treatment. "Many people have heard of people who have had, say, a finger severed and sewn back on. They regain feeling and movement of that finger. That finger is served by motor neurons that actually start in the central nervous system and reach all the way down to your finger," he explained. "So that the end of the neuron can regenerate just fine over several centimeters in your finger. But if you were to cut that same nerve in the central nervous system, it would not regrow at all." Professor Schnarr who led the research on new nerve regeneration techniques said we can best understand the nervous system if we think of the electrical wiring of a house. Insulated copper wires carry electricity to a light bulb or a radio, for example. If the wire is cut, the light goes out and the radio stops playing.

Keyword: Regeneration
Link ID: 1967 - Posted: 04.29.2002

Researchers unravel the private life of this weird, wonderful carnivore John Pickrell In the movie The Lion King, hyenas are the villains. They're portrayed as slobbering, mangy, stupid scavengers always ready to do someone else's dirty work. It's entertaining, but the caricature perpetuates wrong ideas about these social carnivores, bemoans zoologist Kay Holekamp. She should know. For the past 14 years, she has followed the soap opera played out by a clan of around 70 spotted hyenas in the Talek area of Kenya's Masai Mara National Reserve, and she's out to set the record straight. The truth of the matter, Holekamp exclaims, is that the spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta ) is highly intelligent, with mental abilities and social skills to match many a primate. These hyenas are also superb predators, feeding mostly on fresh meat. Their hunting skill equals that of lions or cheetahs. Moreover, Holekamp continues, "once you've seen a female delicately carrying babies in those great bone-crushing jaws, you realize what wonderful mothers they are." Holekamp and her colleagues at Michigan State University in East Lansing have a deep affection for hyenas. They've given the animals names of U.S. presidents, ancient gods and goddesses and goodies, such as Hot Dog, Moon Pie, and Jujubee. The zoologists have been monitoring the Talek clan from dawn until dusk since 1988. At any one time, several members of Holekamp's team are stationed in Kenya. From Science News, Vol. 161, No. 17, April 27, 2002, p. 267. Copyright ©2002 Science Service. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Aggression; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 1966 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The findings of a study from a Brazil suggest a new cooperation between physicians and educators to ensure that cognitive stimulus be offered to offset the side-effects of these necessary medicines. New Orleans -- Epilepsy and its treatment have proven to impair cognitive and behavioral functions. The impact on the former by epilepsy associated seizures, brain damage, and use of anticonvulsant drugs can result in memory deficits, attention problems, and reading and writing difficulties. About two million Americans have epilepsy; of the 125,000 new cases that develop each year, up to 50 percent are in children and adolescents, the time when learning capabilities are developed. Developmental disabilities may result from complex interaction of genetic, toxicological or pharmacological (chemical), and social factors. Among these various causes, pharmacological exposure to drugs deserves special scrutiny, because they are readily preventable. This research demonstrates the consequences of anticonvulsant therapy that may contribute to transient cognitive disabilities (impairments of attention, memory, learning and/or social behavior). Previous studies have found that anticonvulsant drugs may themselves cause changes in mental functions. They may be often mixed with neurocognitive behavior, depending on the drug used. There may be also temporary cognitive deterioration. The researchers in a new study assert that clinical experience must be used to identify the subgroup of children who remain at risk for significant and clinically relevant cognitive and behavioral adverse effects of antiepileptic drugs. In testing the effects of drugs on the cognitive functions of the epileptic child, they relied on three established postulates: Copyright © 2002, The American Physiological Society

Keyword: Epilepsy
Link ID: 1965 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Copyright © 2002 AP Online By THERESA AGOVINO, AP Business Writer NEW YORK - A lifetime of attempted diets didn't stop Andy Schlesinger from ballooning to 705 pounds. At 13, he was a chronic overeater who weighed 200 pounds. His desperate parents tried everything from padlocking the refrigerator to electric shock treatments to keep him from adding more weight. At 32, the 5-foot-11 exporter reached his maximum weight and was practically homebound. "I'd take five steps and be out of breath," he recalled. Sheer size kept him out of many places. He didn't fit in movie theater seats or public toilets. He broke bar stools. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 1964 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Twin's death forces woman to confront aneurysm From Debra Goldschmidt CNN Medical Unit ANN ARBOR, Michigan (CNN) -- Ardith Eastlund was 66 and felt great. She was enjoying life, spending time with her family and traveling with her husband, Dale. They were the best of times. Then last year, while on a cruise, she received news that threatened to topple her happy existence: Her sister had suffered an aneurysm and was in a coma. Her twin sister. The aneurysm, a blister on a blood vessel on the brain, proved fatal for Ardith Eastlund's sister. Like 40 percent of people who suffer an aneurysm, her sister never awoke; she lingered for a week. © 2002 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.

Keyword: Stroke; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 1962 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Find helps scientists date evolution of womb-placenta system David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor Scientists digging amid a trove of Chinese dinosaur fossils have unearthed a tiny shrewlike creature that is the earliest known ancestor of mammals -- including humans -- that carry their young in the womb and nourish them through the placenta. Dubbed Eomaia, or "Dawn Mother," the primitive little beast was no bigger than a large mouse, but its remains shed new light on the evolution of mammals during an era when dinosaurs ruled the earth, the international team of fossil hunters said. One of the great unknowns is how and when the so-called placental mammals became separated from the marsupials, which include kangaroos and possums, and the much rarer monotreme mammals, whose only living members are the egg-laying duck-billed platypus and echidna, or "spiny anteaters." ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 1961 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Tampa, FL — University of South Florida neuroscientist Tanja Zigova, PhD, has been awarded a $1.3-million federal grant to study whether stem cells from human umbilical cord blood (HUCB) can rescue the brain from age-related decline. Using an animal model, the 5-year, National Institute on Aging study will address critical questions about HUCB cells' true potential to successfully treat the normal mental declines of aging as well as neurodegenerative diseases. Studies at USF and elsewhere have suggested that HUCB may be a noncontroversial and more readily available source of therapeutic cells for treating neurological diseases like Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease and brain injuries such as stroke.

Keyword: Stem Cells; Alzheimers
Link ID: 1960 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Copyright © 2002 AP Online The Associated Press WASHINGTON - The Galapagos Island finches once studied by Charles Darwin respond quickly to changes in food supply by evolving new beaks and body sizes, according to researchers who studied the birds for almost 30 years. Starting in 1973, husband-and-wife researchers Peter and Rosemary Grant of Princeton University have followed the evolutionary changes in two types of birds, the ground finch and the cactus finch, on Daphne Major, one of the Galapagos Islands. In a study appearing Friday in the journal Science, the Grants report that climate and weather have a dramatic effect on the evolutionary path the finches follow. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 1959 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Copyright © 2002 AP Online By LAURA MECKLER, Associated Press WASHINGTON - The White House is in serious discussions over legislation long opposed by many Republicans to guarantee that insurance for mental health disorders is as comprehensive as that offered for other illnesses, a White House official said Thursday. President Bush may endorse the idea of "mental health parity" at an event Monday in New Mexico, home of Republican Sen. Pete Domenici, who has championed the cause for many years. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, cautioned that no deal has been reached yet on the legislation, which is sharply opposed by business groups, which fear that it will significantly increase the cost of health insurance. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media

Keyword: Depression; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 1958 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Charles Darwin had a difficult time explaining how evolution could create something as complex as a human eye. Now a University of Connecticut researcher hopes that by harnessing the power of evolution, he might one day help the blind to see. By picking out favorable mutations within an ancient saltwater microbe that can convert light into energy, Dr. Robert Birge believes he can create a protein capable of replacing electrical signals lost when cells in the retina are destroyed by diseases of the eye, such as macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. (C) Copyright 2000 Digital Korea Herald. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 1957 - Posted: 04.26.2002

NewScientist.com news service A system that allows doctors to compare a patient's brain scans with a "personalised" atlas created from scans of similar people could reveal subtle and previously hidden abnormalities, say UK doctors. The prototype Dynamic Brain Atlas was created by a team from King's College London, Imperial College London and Oxford University and uses a database of Magnetic Resonance Imaging scans from 200 people. Doctors can select scans from people in the database that most closely match their own patient, in terms of age and sex, for example, to create an averaged "brain atlas" for comparison. Currently, doctors visually compare a patient's scans with one or two others. But the comparison could, for example, highlight "abnormalities" that are simply the result of age differences. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 1956 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Twins are at risk of developing the condition autism, according to researchers. Previous studies have suggested that genes play a key role in determining who is at risk of developing the potentially socially debilitating illness. But two studies carried out in the UK and the US suggest that environmental factors such as experiences in the womb, may also be involved. However, the National Autistic Society has warned that more research is needed. In the first study, David Greenberg, a geneticist at Columbia University in New York, examined a database of families in which at least two siblings had autism. He began to have doubts about the genetic basis of autism when he identified a significant number of both identical and fraternal twins in the database. (C) BBC

Keyword: Autism; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 1955 - Posted: 04.25.2002

By ANASTASIA TOUFEXIS Psychiatric expert witnesses are fixtures of the criminal justice system these days, and nowhere more so than in trials involving pleas of insanity to explain and excuse a crime. One of the most prominent and provocative experts is Dr. Park Dietz, 53, a forensic psychiatrist in Newport Beach, Calif. Dr. Dietz has studied more than 1,000 people whose lawyers are considering insanity pleas, and he has testified in the trials of high-profile defendants like John W. Hinckley Jr., Jeffrey Dahmer and Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who was convicted of murder after drowning her children. Dr. Dietz, who was the star prosecution witness in the Yates trial, found it an especially troubling case, professionally and personally. "It would have been the easier course of action to distort the law a little, ignore the evidence a little, and pretend that she didn't know what she did was wrong," Dr. Dietz said. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Depression
Link ID: 1954 - Posted: 04.25.2002

Implanting olfactory ensheathing glial cells into the spinal cords of paralyzed adult rats recently has been shown to promote neuronal cell repair and restore function. After transplantation, the rats were able to walk, even climb over complex terrain, and respond to touch and proprioception (stimuli originating in muscles and tendons) in their hind-limbs. These results are the most dramatic functional and histological repair yet achieved after complete spinal cord transection in adult mammals, and they open new avenues in the search for treatment of spinal cord injuries in other mammals, including humans. The leader of the group of scientists who achieved this, Dr. Almudena Ramon-Cueto, Institute of Biomedicine, Spanish Council for Scientific Research in Valencia, is one of a panel of experts speaking in New Orleans April 22 at an Experimental Biology 2002 American Association of Anatomists symposium on Olfactory Ensheathing Cells: Therapeutic Potential in Spinal Cord Injury. Chaired by Dr. Kathryn J. Jones, Loyola University in Chicago, the panel discusses the location and structure olfactory ensheathing cells, how they work, and why the best hope for restoring function in human spinal cord injury patients might well lie in their own noses.

Keyword: Glia; Regeneration
Link ID: 1953 - Posted: 04.25.2002

Endangered vulture eats excrement to attract mates. MEERA LOUIS Eating cow, goat and sheep excrement gives the Egyptian vulture the edge in the mating game. Ungulate droppings contain pigments called carotenoids, which birds cannot produce for themselves. Carotenoids are nutritious, but more importantly, they keep the area around the vultures' eyes bright yellow. A yellow face makes the fluffy white birds more attractive to mates, J. J. Negro of the Estacion Biologica de Donana in Seville, Spain, and his colleagues have found1. "The yellower the better," says Negro. * Negro, J. J. et al. An unusual source of essential carotenoids. Nature, 416, 807 - 808, (2002). © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2002 =

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 1952 - Posted: 06.24.2010