Neuroscientists are mining an unlikely source for new treatments. Venoms. Researchers found that venoms contain many compounds that have an exceptional ability to zero in on specific targets in the nervous system. Insights into the specialized abilities of select venom components may lead to new treatments for a number of nervous system ailments. Scorpions, snails, snakes and spiders unleash venoms through their fangs or stingers. They hurt, stun and kill. Clearly the poisonous cocktails are bad news for an attacking bird, tasty-looking fish or hapless human. It turns out, however, that venoms are grand news for neuroscience. New research indicates that venoms contain many molecules packed with exceptional targeting abilities that interfere with specific internal mechanisms. Exploiting this characteristic may help solve a variety of problems in the nervous system, according to accumulating evidence from work on animals and humans. Copyright © 2001 Society for Neuroscience. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without permission of the Society for Neuroscience.

Keyword: Neurotoxins
Link ID: 274 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Seizures seem to hit an epileptic at random moments. But scientists have discovered that bursts of electricity in the brain can precede an attack as early as 7 hours. The study may help researchers predict seizures--and possibly prevent them. Many clinicians have long suspected that an epileptic seizure originates long before its symptoms appear; for one thing, patients sometimes perceive intuitively that a seizure is on its way. So far, though, most of the measurements of electrical activity in the brain have focused on the first few minutes before a seizure, when neurologists can pick up strong abnormal bursts of activity on an electroencephalogram. --CHARLOTTE SCHUBERT Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Epilepsy
Link ID: 273 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Fussy females play away JOHN WHITFIELD Breeding with a member of another species is generally thought to be pretty pointless. When a horse mates with a donkey, for example, the resulting mule is sterile. But, in the woods of Sweden and the Czech Republic, it can actually pay some female birds to set up home with males of a different species. Ben Sheldon, of the University of Oxford, and colleagues have discovered that female collared flycatchers (Ficedula albicollis) have sophisticated ways of avoiding the pitfalls of hybridization when they mate with male pied flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca)1. 1.Veen, T. et al. Hybridization and adaptive mate choice in flycatchers. Nature 411, 45­50 (2001). © Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001 - NATURE NEWS SERVICE Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2001 Reg. No. 785998 England.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 272 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Molecule Reduces Alzheimer's Plaques in Brain The highways and byways through which the brain exchanges messages require maintenance much as any municipal road. Crucial to these thoroughfares are the trash collectors, which prevent the accumulation of toxic waste. What would happen if such debris were left to accumulate? Alzheimer's disease would result. Unfortunately, that scenario plays itself out over and over again in the brains of the four million Americans with the disease. Now, researchers at the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease and the UCSF department of neurology have identified a molecule that could be key to getting trash-collecting cells, called microglia, back to work. The University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143, (415) 476-9000, Copyright © 2001, The Regents of the University of California.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 271 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Weight gain causes weight loss JOHN WHITFIELD Surgically implanting weights into mice fools them into thinking that they have got fatter. They slim down accordingly and stay slim even after the weights are removed, new research has discovered1. The result points to a means of weight regulation based on the body's perception of how heavy it is and controlled through the nervous system. If the same pertains in humans, ballast might just be the new fat buster. 1.Adams, C. S., Korytko, A. I. & Blank, J. L. A novel mechanism of body mass regulation. Journal of Experimental Biology 204, 1729­1734 (2001). © Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001 - NATURE NEWS SERVICE Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2001 Reg. No. 785998 England.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 270 - Posted: 10.20.2001

TOM CLARKE
When a male dove goes a-wooing he must strike a subtle balance between strutting his stuff and showing his sensitive side. A female needs to be convinced that he is macho enough to sire strong offspring, yet tender enough to help her raise them. When the time is right, a biological catalyst called aromatase puts a stop to the rough stuff Leonida Fusani at the Max Planck Research Centre for Ornithology in Andechs, Germany and colleagues have found. It is aromatase that, by breaking some chemical rings, brings on the billing and the cooing1. Fusani, L., Gahr, M. & Hutchinson, J. B. Aromatase inhibition reduces specifically one display of the ring dove courtship behavior. General and Comparative Endocrinology 122, 23­30 (2001). © Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001 - NATURE NEWS SERVICE Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2001 Reg. No. 785998 England.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 269 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Back from the Brink Psychological treatments for schizophrenia attract renewed interest By Bruce Bower Leslie Greenblat learned she had schizophrenia long after she had begun to hear, in her words, "thought-voices." She heard them all the time, whether she was driving, reading, shopping, or talking with friends. The disembodied remarks seemed to come from someone whose intimidating and demoralizing pronouncements couldn't be ignored. Greenblat's condition first landed her in a psychiatric hospital in 1990. Over the next 3 years, the young woman was briefly hospitalized another dozen times. After each discharge, she took antipsychotic medications for a few months until the thought-voices receded. Invariably, however, they returned. From Science News, Vol. 159, No. 17, Apr. 28, 2001, p. 268. Copyright © 2001 Science Service. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 268 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Scientists use gene injections to make blind dogs see Doctors think similar method could help thousands of people Washington Post Saturday, April 28, 2001 Dogs born blind are seeing the world for the first time after scientists injected new genes into their eyes. The unprecedented feat may give hope to the nearly 10,000 Americans born with the same disease -- and hundreds of thousands of others with closely related forms of blindness. ©2001 San Francisco Chronicle Page A - 3

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 267 - Posted: 10.20.2001

3 promising stem cell studies fuel debate over embryo use Rick Weiss, Washington Post Friday, April 27, 2001 Three research reports released yesterday provide tantalizing evidence that cells from human embryos and fetuses have the potential to cure ailments affecting millions of Americans -- a conclusion likely to intensify an already heated debate over the ethics of human embryo cell research. In one report, old rats performed better after scientists injected brain cells from aborted human fetuses into the rodents' age-addled brains. It's the first indication that such transplants can prompt cognitive improvements, and it hints at a treatment for Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia. ©2001 San Francisco Chronicle Page A - 1

Keyword: Stem Cells
Link ID: 265 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Researchers produce new diagnosis standard By K.C. Jaehnig CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Using a mathematical model originally developed overseas to measure achievement test results, three Illinois researchers have put together a "yardstick" they say doctors could use when trying to diagnose Alzheimer's disease. "Alzheimer's disease affects nearly 4 million people in this country, but it can be diagnosed only by ruling out all other possible causes for the dementia," said A. Kyle Perkins, a linguist at Southern Illinois University Carbondale who specializes in language testing.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 264 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Humanity: its all in the mind HELEN PEARSON The difference between chimps and humans is all in the mind. It is differences in our brain's gene activity that really sets us apart from chimps, delegates at the Human Genome Meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland, heard this week. "I'm interested in what makes me human," explains Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. After sequencing 3 million letters of the chimp genome and comparing them with the human draft, his group reasoned that DNA sequence can't be it: only 1.3% of letters are different. Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001 - NATURE NEWS SERVICE Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2001 Reg. No. 785998 England.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 263 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Researchers Discover Human Gene that May Produce Sweet Taste Receptor April 23, 2001- Two research groups led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigators have independently identified a human gene that encodes a likely receptor for sweet compounds. The researchers say finding the gene, which is expressed by the tongue's taste cells, opens an important research pathway that may help answer fundamental questions such as how the brain perceives sweet taste and why molecules with dramatically different chemical structures can taste sweet. Discovery of the candidate sweet taste receptor adds to a repertoire of recently discovered receptors thought to be involved in the perception of bitter and umami tastes. 2001 Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 262 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Gene double troubles minds HELEN PEARSON Everyone knows what it's like to feel worried. But anxiety disorders such as phobias are crippling forms of irrational fear that may be in part caused by an unusual genetic double-act, the annual Human Genome Meeting in Edinburgh heard this week. People with phobias are often double-jointed or ‘hypermobile' as well. Xavier Estivill of the Medical and Molecular Genetics Centre in Barcelona, Spain, and his colleagues used this phenomenon to help hunt down the genes involved. Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001 - NATURE NEWS SERVICE Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2001 Reg. No. 785998 England.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 261 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Chords strike a grammatical note TOM CLARKE The region of the brain that allows us understand whether a sentence makes sense may also help us tell the difference between a symphony and cacophony new research suggests1. The Broca's area - a brain region that processes the syntax, or word arrangement in a sentence - is activated when people hear a musical chord in the wrong place in a traditional progression of chords. So Burkhard Maess and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in Leipzig, Germany find. 1.Maess, B., Koelsch, S., Gunter, T. C. and Friederici, A. D. Musical Syntax is processed in Broca's area: an MEG study. Nature Neuroscience 4, 540–545 (2001). Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001 - NATURE NEWS SERVICE Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2001 Reg. No. 785998 England.

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 260 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Autism: Pointing the finger From The Economist print edition A CHILD'S future really may be written in his hands--not in the creases of his palms but in the relative lengths of his fingers. A report just published in Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology suggests that people with autism have ring fingers that are abnormally long compared with their index fingers. Children with autism have trouble interacting with other people. Both their verbal and their gesture-based communication is poor, and they often have low intelligence. Early hallmarks--a failure to point at things, follow the gaze of someone else, or engage in pretend play--are often obvious by the tender age of 18 months. About one child in 500 suffers from the condition. Copyright © 1995-2001 The Economist Newspaper Group Ltd

Keyword: Autism; Laterality
Link ID: 259 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Mother Is Just Another Face In The Crowd To Autistic Children Unlike normally developing and mentally retarded children, autistic 3- and 4-year-olds do not react to a picture of their mother but do react when they see a picture of a familiar toy, a University of Washington psychologist has found. Geraldine Dawson will report her result Thursday in Minneapolis at the annual meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development. Her finding suggests that an impairment in face recognition may turn out to be one of the earliest indicators of abnormal brain development in autism.

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 258 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Your Cheating Heart: Questions for David Barash and Judith Eve Lipton Interview by DAVID RAKOFF Your new book contends that extramarital dalliances are natural throughout the animal kingdom -- even among such legendarily faithful species as geese. But how do you then make the leap to drawing conclusions about people? LIPTON: People are certainly unusual as mammals, but not that unusual. The evidence from anthropology and from biology suggests that by nature human beings are prone to what are called extra-pair copulations or E.P.C.'s, also known as philandering, adultery or cheating. BARASH: We've always known that males, by their biology, are particularly prone to looking for sexual opportunities. But we always assumed that females, with their yearning for a sort of cozy monogamous domesticity, were the exact opposite. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 257 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Researchers have the first evidence that cues that guide migrating nerve cells also direct white blood cells called leukocytes, which have to find their way to inflamed, infected or damaged areas of the body. The study is reported in the April 19 issue of Nature. "This similarity between the immune system and nervous system might suggest new therapeutic approaches to immune system disorders such as inflammation and autoimmune diseases," says Yi Rao, Ph.D., an associate professor of anatomy and neurobiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Wu JY, Feng L, Park H-T, Havlioglu N, Wen L, Tang H, Bacon KB, Jiang Z, Zhang X, Rao Y. The neuronal repellent Slit inhibits leukocyte chemotaxis induced by chemotactic factors. Nature, April 19, 2001.

Keyword: Glia
Link ID: 256 - Posted: 10.20.2001

When to Abandon Your Nest Cold-hearted though it may seem, a breeding bird is sometimes willing to sacrifice its young to save itself, perhaps to breed again. Now researchers report that birds take two factors into account when deciding whether to risk delivering food to the nest in the presence of a predator: the number of their young and their own likelihood of surviving the encounter. The new study started with an earlier observation by physiological ecologist Cameron Ghalambor of the University of California, Riverside, and his colleague Thomas Martin at the U.S. Geological Survey in Missoula, Montana. They documented that birds in the Northern Hemisphere tend to lay more eggs than do similar species in the Southern Hemisphere. Then they examined if the number of eggs affected the parent birds' behavior, in particular, its willingness to return to the nest to feed their chicks when confronted with a predator. --ELIZABETH PENNISI Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 255 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Elephant Elders Deserve Respect There's good reason why elephants never forget. New research shows that the lifetime experience of the oldest female in an elephant group helps them discriminate friend from foe. Ultimately, groups with wise females produce more offspring. The results may extend to other animals as well, the researchers speculate, and may even explain why some populations of sperm whales have relatively few young. For the new study, reported in the 20 April issue of Science, animal communication researcher Karen McComb of the University of Sussex in Brighton, United Kingdom, and Sarah Durant of the Institute of Zoology in London studied 20 small family groups of elephants, each typically containing several females and their calves, in Kenya. Each group moves independently, often encountering other clans or individuals while foraging for food. --ELIZABETH PENNISI Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 254 - Posted: 10.20.2001