Bees brighter than we knew, study finds They pass cognitive tests usually given apes, people Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer Thursday, April 19, 2001 Bees are famously busy -- but they're also pretty brainy. Our pollen-hunting friends possess "higher cognitive functions," judging by cunning experiments in which the creatures learned to compare and distinguish different colors and patterns, according to today's issue of Nature. In what an outside expert praises as "an exciting discovery," the French researcher Martin Giurfa and four colleagues showed that honeybees -- that's Apis mellifera to bee fanciers -- excel at cognitive tests normally performed by lab primates and human volunteers. 2001 San Francisco Chronicle Page A - 1

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 253 - Posted: 10.20.2001

From staff and the news wires
Russian scientists claim to have developed the first artificial brain, a "neuro-computer" with the same intellectual potential as its human counterpart, the Interfax news agency reported last weekend. The new Russian computer is based on the human brain cell, or neuron, and outstrips previous brain models by using state-of-the-art findings in neurophysiology and neuromorphology to produce a truly thinking machine, scientist Vitaly Valtsev said. (c) 2001 Christian Science Monitor

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 252 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Surprise Me, Please! When your body gets something it wants, a pleasure center near the front of the brain buzzes with activity. Now, psychologists have found that this reward region responds more strongly when the pleasurable stimuli it encounters are unpredictable. The results, reported in the 15 April issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, may lead to a better understanding of addiction. A key part of this reward circuitry is the nucleus accumbens, a patch of tissue in the forebrain about the size of an almond. When it is experimentally removed from the brains of drug-addicted animals, their cravings cease. In the late 1980s, researchers studying this pathway in monkeys found that it responded more strongly to unexpected, rather than predictable, stimuli. Other brain-imaging studies showed that the nucleus accumbens is active when humans receive a reward, whether drugs, money, or just plain sugar--but before the new study by Gregory Berns of Emory University and E. Read Montague of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, the role of surprise in activating the region in humans was unknown. --JOSH GEWOLB Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 251 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Chimps touched by television TOM CLARKE If you reach for your hanky as Leonardo DiCaprio slips beneath the freezing Altlantic waves in Titanic, or dive behind the sofa during Alien, you may not be alone. A new study suggests that humans are not the only animals to feel sad or scared when watching television - chimpanzees are also moved by video clips of fearful or appealing scenes. What's more, Lisa Parr of Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia has found that chimps (Pan troglodytes) respond physically to events portrayed in videos just as they would to the events themselves1. 1.Parr, L. Cognitive and physiological markers of emotional awareness in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Animal Cognition (2001) (In the press). © Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001 - NATURE NEWS SERVICE Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2001 Reg. No. 785998 England.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 250 - Posted: 10.20.2001

St. John's wort found futile against deep depression Big U.S. study contradicts earlier tests Sabin Russell, Chronicle Medical Writer Wednesday, April 18, 2001 St. John's wort, the popular herbal supplement taken to fight off the blues, has failed a tightly controlled scientific test to see if it really works against major depression. Nearly two dozen previous trials have found evidence that extracts of the little flowering weed were effective against depression -- perhaps as good as some prescription drugs. But this study casts doubt on the value of earlier trials. ©2001 San Francisco Chronicle Page A - 11

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 249 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Having a high IQ may help you live longer, according to a study of elderly Scots. Researchers traced more than 2200 people who took the same mental test in 1932 and found that those who scored highest were significantly more likely to be alive in 1997. It's not clear why, however. The finding is based on a recently uncovered trove of raw data. On 1 June 1932, every 11-year-old schoolchild in Scotland sat down for the Scottish Mental Survey. The results were stashed in government archives for decades. Psychologist Ian Deary of the University of Edinburgh dug up the tests in 1997, seeing in them an unparalleled opportunity to track cognitive changes with age. Last year Deary and colleagues reported that they gave the same test to 101 of the subjects exactly 66 years later. The results demonstrated the stability of IQ throughout life. In addition, kids who scored high in 1932 today have better health and less dementia than their classmates who didn't perform as well. --CONSTANCE HOLDEN Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 248 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Understanding Huntington's Disease Researchers implicate a second protein in the debilitating illness Researchers are inching ever closer to a treatment for the inherited neurodegenerative disorder Huntington's disease (HD). Following close on the heels of recent optimistic reports on fetal cell implants1,2 comes a report from Johns Hopkins University that sheds light on a possible mechanism of neuronal destruction in HD.3 The work reveals possible new drug targets. Legendary folksinger Woody Guthrie's fight with HD brought the disease into the public eye in the 1960s. Today, some 30,000 people in the United States are affected by the late-onset, autosomal dominant condition. Early symptoms--such as anger or depression, repetitive fidgety movements, and a clumsiness and tendency to fall--may go unnoticed for years. Neurological deterioration, reflecting cell death in the brain's striatum, typically continues for 15 to 20 years. The Scientist 15[8]:14, Apr. 16, 2001 © Copyright 2001, The Scientist, Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Huntingtons
Link ID: 247 - Posted: 10.20.2001

An owl knows where to aim its talons even in the dark, thanks to neurons that can pinpoint the sound of a rustling mouse. These space-specific neurons perform more sophisticated computations than expected, researchers say. While most neurons simply add incoming signals to come up with an answer, these neurons can multiply. Space-specific neurons receive two kinds of inputs. If a mouse squeaks to an owl's right side, that ear registers a slightly louder signal, and slightly sooner, than the left ear. Earlier research by Masakazu Konishi and colleagues showed that a set of auditory neurons calculates the difference in loudness and time and sends the results to neurons that are precisely tuned to particular locations. To learn how these neurons process the signals, neuroscientists José Luis Peña and Konishi of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena outfitted 14 barn owls with headphones and monitored space-specific neurons' responses to pairs of sounds. --LAURA HELMUTH Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 246 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Novel locale for ERs sparks new direction in steroid hormone research By Eugene Russo For years, endocrinologists believed that the actions of estrogen and other steroids were confined to the cell's nucleus. By presenting evidence for a plasma membrane estrogen receptor (ER), this paper made the rather unorthodox claim that estrogen also had cell biologic effects that originate in the plasma membrane. The results presented continue to be divisive. "There's been a tremendous turn-around by a number of prominent people in the field who are now looking at this concept very seriously," says senior author Ellis R. Levin, chief of endocrinology and metabolism at the Long Beach Veterans Affairs Medical Center and vice chairman for research in the department of medicine at the University of California, Irvine. The Scientist 15[8]:15, Apr. 16, 2001 © Copyright 2001, The Scientist, Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Apoptosis
Link ID: 245 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Susan Okie, Washington Post Wednesday, April 11, 2001 Doctors in San Diego have implanted genetically modified cells into the brain of a 60-year-old woman with early Alzheimer's disease in an effort to slow her mental decline, members of the research team announced yesterday. The experimental surgery, which researchers hope to test in seven additional patients, represents the first trial of gene therapy for a degenerative brain disorder, said neuroscientist Mark Tuszynski, who heads the project. (c) 2001 San Francisco Chronicle Page A - 3

Keyword: Alzheimers; Trophic Factors
Link ID: 244 - Posted: 10.20.2001

New Treatment for Some Ataxias People who inherit the neurological disease ataxia suffer from balance and coordination problems, seizures, and brain damage. By giving some of these patients a vitamin-like compound that helps the body turn food into energy, these symptoms can be alleviated, according to a small study reported in the 10 April issue of Neurology. The compound, called coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), plays an essential role in the series of biochemical reactions by which cells extract energy from sugars. Although CoQ10 is present in every cell in the body, researchers knew that a shortage of CoQ10 is particularly devastating to muscles, which need a lot of energy. Neurologist Salvatore DiMauro of Columbia University was studying a patient with wasted muscles when he discovered an unexpected link to hereditary ataxia. --CAROLINE SEYDEL Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 243 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Bowerbirds, Brainy Birds As bird behavior goes, the displays of bowerbirds are among the weirdest. Male bowerbirds have taken up architecture to impress females, building large hutlike structures of twigs, decorated with shiny beetles, shells, and other colorful touches. Now, a new study shows that bowerbirds have substantially larger brains, compared to their body size, than other birds. It seems that building and appreciating designer follies has led to smarter birds. To study the brain size of bowerbirds, zoologist Joah Madden of the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom, borrowed 70 stuffed specimens of various bowerbird species from one of Britain's largest bird museums, the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum at Tring. He placed them under the x-ray machine of a friendly dental practice and took detailed measurements of their skulls. Using his data, he could calculate the original brain sizes. --MENNO SCHILTHUIZEN Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 242 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Weighing on your mind HELEN PEARSON Cannabis users know all too well the hunger that strikes after a smoke. Now researchers in the United States confirm that molecules in the brain, similar to those found in cannabis, have an everyday role in controlling food intake. Together with the fat-regulating hormone leptin, these 'cannabinoids' help to manage body weight1. Cannabinoids make mice eat. George Kunos and colleagues at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond find that mice genetically engineered so that cannabinoids have no effect in their brains eat less than normal after fasting. 1.Di Marzo, V. et al. Leptin-regulated endocannabinoids are involved in maintaining food intake. Nature 410, 822–825 (2001). Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001 - NATURE NEWS SERVICE Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2001 Reg. No. 785998 England.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 241 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Fat Cells May Combat Disease Hope for joint repair, brain implants Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times Tuesday, April 10, 2001 Fat, the great American obsession, might aid treatments for a variety of conditions, from cartilage implants in damaged knees to brain implants for Parkinson's disease and strokes, researchers report today. A team of researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Pittsburgh has isolated stem cells -- primitive cells with the potential to become virtually any type of tissue -- from fat collected by liposuction and converted them into bone, cartilage and muscle. 2001 San Francisco Chronicle Page A - 2

Keyword: Stem Cells
Link ID: 240 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Researchers Fear Navy's Sonar May Harm Whales By RACHEL X. WEISSMAN Last spring Kenneth Balcomb, a marine mammalogist, woke to find an unsettling situation outside his Abaco Island home in the Bahamas: a 16-foot Cuvier's beaked whale weighing some two tons stranded in knee-deep water. With the help of several volunteers, Mr. Balcomb, who heads the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor, Wash., tried to push the animal out to sea. After the fifth attempt, the disoriented whale stopped turning toward shore and continued into the open ocean. But that was only the start. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Animal Communication
Link ID: 239 - Posted: 10.20.2001

April 6, 2001- By studying mice whose brains contain a composite of neurons that produce normal and longer-than-normal circadian rhythms, researchers are beginning to understand how neurons synchronize their oscillatory behavior to control the body's 24-hour, internal clock. The experiments represent the beginning of a new research direction, say the scientists, that progresses beyond discovering the genes that produce the internal clock machinery to exploring how brain cells interact to produce coherent circadian rhythms. ©2001 Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Keyword: Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 238 - Posted: 11.06.2001

Kids' got rhythm JOHN WHITFIELD To a three-year-old, the William Tell Overture and Chopin's Funeral March probably sound equally jolly, a new study suggests. But by the age of about six, children's ability to distinguish happy from sad music is fully formed. Five-year-olds, on the other hand, associate slow tempo with misery, but are not tuned in to the emotional resonance of major and minor keys. Simone Dalla Bella, of the University of Montreal, and colleagues found that children of five and above correctly matched the structure of synthesized snippets of classical music [click to see and hear details ] to mood more than four-fifths of the time1. 1.Dalla Bella, S., Peretz, I., Rousseau, L. & Gosselin, N. A developmental study of the affective value of tempo and mode in music. Cognition (in the press). Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001 - NATURE NEWS SERVICE Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2001 Reg. No. 785998 England.

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 237 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Patients with lesions of amygdala shown no enhanced awareness of the presentation of emotionally evocative words
Humans are not passive perceivers, giving equal access for entry into consciousness to all stimuli; we can ignore some events, words, and stimuli, but not others. For instance, our perceptions are influenced by the emotional significance of an impinging stimulus. Determining how the brain "decides" to attend to some stimuli and ignore others is emerging as a critical issue in neuroscience.

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 236 - Posted: 10.20.2001

how brain responds to fears that are imagined and anticipated, but never experienced NYU neuroscientist Elizabeth A. Phelps and colleagues at Yale University find that the left amygdala responds to cognitive representations of fear Although people learn about potentially dangerous events through hard experience (a given dog is dangerous because it once bit you), often we learn about such events through communication (a given dog is dangerous because you heard it bit somebody else.) In understanding the neural systems of fear learning, most researchers have focused on the former type of learning, which is called fear conditioning. However, little is known about the neural system underlying fear-learning through communication, in the absence of aversive experience. Using fear conditioning, the neural systems of fear learning and expression have been eloquently mapped with both human and animal research.

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 235 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Nearly a decade ago, researchers determined that the brain contains a molecule that mimics the active ingredient in marijuana, but its location and role in the brain were unclear. Now, UCSF researchers have discovered that the molecule acts, at least in part, in a region of the brain that plays a key role in learning and memory. The study, reported in the March 29 issue of Nature, suggests, the researchers say, that the molecule, known as a cannabinoid, plays a role in particular cognitive functions within a structure known as the hippocampus. Paradoxically, marijuana disrupts cognitive function and the likely explanation, the researchers say, is that marijuana disrupts the very cognitive system the cannabinoid normally supports. Copyright 2001 Regents of the University of California. All Rights Reserved.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 234 - Posted: 10.20.2001