By Rahma Ibrahim University researchers have discovered a new subset of cells — “metronome cells” — that may act as timekeepers in the brain, a finding that contributes new information to one of the biggest debates in neuroscience. While scientists have long known about the existence of cells in the brain that tend to be more reactive to stimuli — called fast spiking cells — they have long debated the function of a specific frequency of rhythm produced by those cells, called gamma oscillations. Some neuroscientists believe that gamma oscillations are at the root of how the brain functions. Other equally qualified scientists believe that these rhythms are merely a byproduct of brain activity. “Scientists’ faces will either light up or grow very overcast when someone mentions gamma oscillation,” explained Christopher Moore, professor of neuroscience and supervisor of the study. These gamma oscillations produce structured ripples in the brain at an interval of 40 Hertz, or 40 cycles per second. This regular pattern has led scientists to believe that perhaps the gamma oscillations act as an organizing clock, helping to align and connect information coming from different areas of the brain. Moore compared this theory to an orchestra; just as a conductor of an orchestra connects the various parts, the gamma oscillations have been thought to have similar function. If the conductor stops, then the whole orchestra cannot make good music. But for years, scientists have acknowledged limitations with this theory. Fast spiking cells and gamma rhythms have been found to respond to stimulus from outside the body of the cell. This raises concern if researchers assume that these oscillations act as a timekeeper; if the conductor is distracted every time they hear a trumpet, then the orchestra cannot be conducted.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 26649 - Posted: 09.27.2019

By Veronique Greenwood When the land-dwelling ancestors of today’s whales and dolphins slipped into the seas long ago, they gained many things, including flippers, the ability to hold their breath for long periods of time and thick, tough skin. Along the way they also discarded many traits that were no longer relevant or useful. In fact, as scientists reported in a study published Wednesday in Science Advances, the loss of some genes in the common ancestor of whales and dolphins allowed them to shed features that would have been liabilities beneath the waves, which may have contributed to the survival of future generations. As more species’ genomes are sequenced, researchers can begin to pick out which genes are shared among groups of organisms. Presumably, these genes were also found in the group’s last common ancestor. A team led by Michael Hiller, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics and an author of the new paper, used this technique with modern cetaceans, the group that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises. Then they compared that set of genes to those of the cetaceans’ nearest relatives, the hippo family, and pinpointed 85 genes that were switched off or inactivated in the cetaceans’ ancestor during its move to the aquatic life. These genes were involved in a wide variety of processes, such as blood clotting, sleep and hair growth. Although some of the genes had been flagged before, others had not been identified. (Dr. Hiller and colleagues had previously found that genes necessary for the development of hair had been lost in cetaceans, which perhaps reduced drag as the animals swam through the water.) “Many of the things we found were at least for me quite unexpected,” said Dr. Hiller. For instance, one of the lost genes produces an enzyme involved in DNA repair. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep; Evolution
Link ID: 26648 - Posted: 09.27.2019

By Rachel Nuwer In the perennial battle over dogs and cats, there’s a clear public relations winner. Dogs are man’s best friend. They’re sociable, faithful and obedient. Our relationship with cats, on the other hand, is often described as more transactional. Aloof, mysterious and independent, cats are with us only because we feed them. Or maybe not. On Monday, researchers reported that cats are just as strongly bonded to us as dogs or infants, vindicating cat lovers across the land. “I get that a lot — ‘Well, I knew that, I know that cats like to interact with me,’” said Kristyn Vitale, an animal behavior scientist at Oregon State University and lead author of the new study, published in Current Biology. “But in science, you don’t know that until you test it.” Research into cat behavior has lagged that into dogs. Cats are not social animals, many scientists assumed — and not as easy to work with. But recent studies have begun to plumb the depth of cats’ social lives. “This idea that cats don’t really care about people or respond to them isn’t holding up,” Ms. Vitale said. In a study in 2017, Ms. Vitale and her colleagues found that the majority of cats prefer interacting with a person over eating or playing with a toy. In a 2019 study, the researchers found that cats adjust their behavior according to how much attention a person gives them. Other researchers have found that cats are sensitive to human emotion and mood, and that cats know their names. Scientists had arrived at conflicting findings about whether cats form attachments to their owners, however, so Ms. Vitale and her colleagues designed a study to more explicitly test the hypothesis. They recruited owners of 79 kittens and 38 adult cats to participate in a “secure base test,” an experiment commonly used to measure bonds that dogs and primates form with caretakers. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Evolution; Aggression
Link ID: 26647 - Posted: 09.25.2019

Alison Flood Caroline Criado Perez’s exposé of the gender data gap that has created a world biased against women has won her the Royal Society science book prize. Criado Perez’s Invisible Women, which explores how everything from speech-recognition software to bulletproof vests, from medical tests to office temperature controls are designed for men as a default, was called a brilliant exposé by chair of judges and Oxford professor Nigel Shadbolt. He said the book had made him, as an AI researcher and data scientist, look at his field afresh. “[Criado Perez] writes with energy and style, every page full of facts and data that support her fundamental contention that in a world built for and by men gender data gaps, biases and blind spots are everywhere,” he said. The author and feminist campaigner who successfully pushed for Jane Austen to be featured on the UK’s £10 note, called her £25,000 win on Monday night a huge relief. “Obviously it’s a huge honour, but mainly because it has the official endorsement of scientists and so it can’t be dismissed now, and that’s so important,” she said. “Writing this book was hellish. It really tested my mental strength to its limits, partly because it was a really emotional book to write because of the impact this is having on women’s lives and how angry and upsetting it was to keep coming across this gap in the data. But also it was very challenging because it was a book about the whole world and everything in it, and I had to work out how to synthesise that into something manageable.” © 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 26646 - Posted: 09.25.2019

By Nicholas Bakalar Sleep apnea may increase the risk for mood disorders, researchers have found. Obstructive sleep apnea, or O.S.A., is a sleep-related breathing disorder that has been linked to many other conditions, including cardiovascular disease, asthma exacerbation, glaucoma, erectile dysfunction and neurocognitive problems. For the new study, in JAMA Otolaryngology—Head & Neck Surgery, researchers enrolled 197 Korean men and women diagnosed with O.S.A. and 788 people without the syndrome matched for age, sex, and health and socioeconomic characteristics. None of the 985 participants had been diagnosed with depression, bipolar illness or an anxiety disorder before the start of the study. The researchers followed them for an average of nine years. Over the course of the study, people with O.S.A. were nearly three times as likely to be diagnosed with depression, and almost twice as likely to be diagnosed with anxiety as those in the control group. Women with O.S.A. were more likely than men to develop a mood disorder. The reason for the association is unknown. The researchers had no information about the use of positive airway pressure devices or oral appliances used to treat sleep apnea, so they could not determine whether treatment would reduce the risk. Still, they write, “studies that investigate O.S.A. management and the risk of developing affective disorders may yield strategies for effective prevention and intervention practices.” © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep; Depression
Link ID: 26645 - Posted: 09.25.2019

By Eva Frederick There may be honor among thieves, but there certainly isn’t among parasitic wasps. A new study suggests the crypt keeper wasp, whose larvae burrow into the bodies of other wasps and live off their corpses, has more than half a dozen hosts—or, if you prefer, victims. Those victims are typically Bassettia pallida wasps, which lay their eggs in the stems and branches of oak trees, forming swollen bumps called galls or crypts. The crypt keeper wasp (Euderus set) then lays her eggs in the gall, where her larvae either camp out next to the host hatchlings or burrow into their bodies. When a hatchling is ready to chew its way out of the gall, the crypt keeper—through a feat of undiscovered mind control or through simply weakening the host—makes it chew a hole that is too small. That causes the host’s head to get stuck like a cork in a wine bottle. After snacking on the body of the host, the crypt keeper wasp escapes the gall by burrowing out through its host’s head, which is much softer than the tough stem of the plant. © 2019 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 26644 - Posted: 09.25.2019

Researchers have discovered that gene expression regulators work together to raise an individual’s risk of developing schizophrenia. Schizophrenia-like gene expression changes modeled in human neurons matched changes found in patients’ brains. The researchers, led by Kristen Brennand, of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City, report on their findings in Nature Genetics. The work was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health. Genome-wide association studies have revealed at least 143 chromosomal sites associated with risk for schizophrenia. However, individually, each of these sites can explain only a small fraction of the risk. Even when the effects of disease-linked rare genetic variants are factored in, most of schizophrenia’s known high inheritance remains unexplained. One possible clue: more than 40% of the suspect chromosomal sites contain regulators, called expression quantitative trait loci, or eQTLs, that govern the expression of multiple genes. “Individually, these gene regulators have a modest effect on the brain. Working in concert, they exert different and more significant effects on the brain — effects that boost schizophrenia risk,” explained David Panchision, chief of the Developmental Neurobiology Program at NIMH. “Learning more about the downstream cellular and molecular effects of such synergy holds hope for advances in precision psychiatry and more personalized medicine.” To explore the role of these regulators, Brennand and colleagues studied them in induced neurons using a molecular modeling technology. This induced pluripotent stem cell method makes it possible to grow a person’s unique neurons in a petri dish using stem cells derived from their skin cells.

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 26643 - Posted: 09.24.2019

Katarina Zimmer Several recent studies in high-profile journals reported to have genetically engineered neurons to become responsive to magnetic fields. In doing so, the authors could remotely control the activity of particular neurons in the brain, and even animal behavior—promising huge advances in neuroscientific research and speculation for applications even in medicine. “We envision a new age of magnetogenetics is coming,” one 2015 study read. But now, two independent teams of scientists bring those results into question. In studies recently posted as preprints to bioRxiv, the researchers couldn’t replicate those earlier findings. “Both studies . . . appear quite meticulously executed from a biological standpoint—multiple tests were performed across multiple biological testbeds,” writes Polina Anikeeva, a materials and cognitive scientist at MIT, to The Scientist in an email. “I applaud the authors for investing their valuable time and resources into trying to reproduce the results of their colleagues.” The promise of magnetogenetics Being able to use small-scale magnetic fields to control cells or entire organisms would have enormous potential for research and medical therapies. It would be a less invasive method than optogenetics, which requires the insertion of optical fibers to transmit light pulses to specific groups of neurons, and would provide a more rapid means of inducing neural activity than chemogenetics, which sparks biochemical reactions that can take several seconds to stimulate neurons. © 1986–2019 The Scientist

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Brain imaging
Link ID: 26642 - Posted: 09.24.2019

Alex Smith Lori Pinkley, a 50-year-old from Kansas City, Mo., has struggled with puzzling chronic pain since she was 15. She's had endless disappointing visits with doctors. Some said they couldn't help her. Others diagnosed her with everything from fibromyalgia to lipedema to the rare Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Pinkley has taken opioids a few times after surgeries but says they never helped her underlying pain. "I hate opioids with a passion," Pinkley says. "An absolute passion." Recently, she joined a growing group of patients using an outside-the-box remedy: naltrexone. It is usually used to treat addiction, in a pill form for alcohol and as a pill or a monthly shot for opioids. As the medical establishment tries to do a huge U-turn after two disastrous decades of pushing long-term opioid use for chronic pain, scientists have been struggling to develop safe, effective alternatives. When naltrexone is used to treat addiction in pill form, it's prescribed at 50 mg, but chronic-pain patients say it helps their pain at doses of less than a tenth of that. Low-dose naltrexone has lurked for years on the fringes of medicine, but its zealous advocates worry that it may be stuck there. Naltrexone, which can be produced generically, is not even manufactured at the low doses that seem to be best for pain patients. Instead, patients go to compounding pharmacies or resort to DIY methods — YouTube videos and online support groups show people how to turn 50 mg pills into a low liquid dose. Some doctors prescribe it off-label even though it's not FDA-approved for pain. © 2019 npr

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 26641 - Posted: 09.24.2019

Obesity is not a choice and making people feel ashamed results only in them feeling worse about themselves, a report by top psychologists says. It calls for changes in language to reduce stigma, such as saying "a person with obesity" rather than an "obese person". And it says health professionals should be trained to talk about weight loss in a more supportive way. A cancer charity's recent ad campaign was criticised for "fat shaming". Obesity levels rose by 18% in England between 2005 and 2017 and by similar amounts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This means just over one in four UK adults is obese while nearly two-thirds are overweight or obese. But these increases cannot be explained by a sudden loss of motivation across the UK - it is a lot more complicated than that, according to the British Psychological Society report, which concludes it "is not simply down to an individual's lack of willpower". "The people who are most likely to be an unhealthy weight are those who have a high genetic risk of developing obesity and whose lives are also shaped by work, school and social environments that promote overeating and inactivity," it says. "People who live in deprived areas often experience high levels of stress, including major life challenges and trauma, often their neighbourhoods offer few opportunities and incentives for physical activity and options for accessing affordable healthy food are limited." Psychological experiences also play a big role, the report says, with up to half of adults attending specialist obesity services having experienced difficulties in childhood. And stress caused by fat shaming - being made to feel bad about one's weight - by public health campaigns, GPs, nurses and policymakers, often leads to increased eating and more weight gain. © 2019 BBC

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 26640 - Posted: 09.24.2019

A landmark French trial is due to begin to decide whether a diabetes pill prescribed for weight loss was behind the deaths of up to 2,000 people. Servier, the drug's manufacturer, is accused of deceiving users over the killer side effects of a drug later used to treat overweight diabetics. Believed to be one of France's biggest healthcare scandals, the firm is on trial for manslaughter and deceit. Servier has denied the charges, saying it did not lie about the side effects. French health experts believe the drug known as Mediator could have killed anywhere between 500 and 2,000 people before it was finally taken off the market in 2009. The country's state drug regulator, accused of not acting to prevent deaths and injuries, is also on trial. The trial will involve more than 2,600 plaintiffs and 21 defendants, and is expected to run over the course of six months. It will also look into why the drug, which was introduced in 1976, was allowed to sell for so long despite various warnings. Lawyers representing the plaintiffs argue that the drug manufacturer purposely misled patients for decades, and that this was bolstered by lenient authorities. Servier has been accused of profiting at least €1bn ($1.1bn, £880m) from the drug's sales. "The trial comes as huge relief. Finally, we are to see the end of an intolerable scandal," Dr Irene Frachon, a pulmonologist credited with lifting the lid on the side effects, told Reuters news agency. Dr Frachon's research drew on medical records across France and concluded that there was a clear pattern of heart valve problems among Mediator users. This prompted many more studies which ultimately led to the drug's ban. One study concluded that 500 deaths could be linked to Mediator between 1976 and 2009. A second one put the figure at 2,000. Those numbers have been disputed by Servier, which has said that there are only three documented cases where death can be clearly attributed to the use of Mediator. In other cases, it says, aggravating factors were at work. © 2019 BBC

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 26639 - Posted: 09.24.2019

By Perri Klass, M.D. Cesarean delivery can save a baby — or a mother — at a moment of medical danger. However, cesarean births have been linked to an increased risk of various long-term health issues for both women and children, and a recent study shows an association between cesarean birth and the risk of developing autism or attention deficit disorder. The study, published in August in JAMA Network Open, was a meta-analysis. It looked at data from 61 previously published studies, which together included more than 20 million deliveries, and found that birth by cesarean section was associated with a 33 percent higher risk of autism and a 17 percent higher risk of attention deficit disorder. The increased risk was present for both planned and unplanned cesarean deliveries. The first and most important thing to say is that these were observational studies, and that association is not the same as causation. The children born by cesarean section may be different in important ways from the children born vaginally, and those differences may include factors that could affect their later neurodevelopment, from maternal health issues to developmental problems already present during pregnancy to prematurity to difficult deliveries. If your child was born by cesarean section, there’s nothing you can do to change that, and knowing about this association may make you worry, while if you’re pregnant it may make you even more anxious about how the delivery will go. But the information about long-term associations and mode of birth should help to drive further research and understanding of how and why these associations play out. Tianyang Zhang, a Ph.D. student in clinical neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm who was the first author on the article, said that earlier research had shown various associations between cesarean delivery and long-term health problems, including higher rates of obesity and asthma in children. This study looked at a range of developmental and mental health issues. Though it did find an association between cesarean delivery and autism spectrum and attention deficit disorders, it did not find significant associations with others, such as tic disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders or eating disorders. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Autism; ADHD
Link ID: 26638 - Posted: 09.23.2019

By James Gallagher Health and science correspondent, BBC News Babies born by Caesarean section have dramatically different gut bacteria to those born vaginally, according to the largest study in the field. The UK scientists say these early encounters with microbes may act as a "thermostat" for the immune system. And they may help explain why Caesarean babies are more likely to have some health problems later in life. The researchers stress women should not swab babies with their vaginal fluids - known as "vaginal seeding". How important are gut bacteria? Our bodies are not entirely human - instead we are an ecosystem with around half our body's cells made up of microbes such as bacteria, viruses and fungi. Most of them live in our gut and are collectively known as our microbiome. The microbiome is linked to diseases including allergy, obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, Parkinson's, whether cancer drugs work and even depression and autism. This study - by Wellcome Sanger Institute, UCL, and the University of Birmingham - assessed how the microbiome forms when we leave our mother's sterile womb and enter a world full of bugs. Regular samples were taken from the nappies of nearly 600 babies for the first month of life, and some provided faecal samples for up to a year. © 2019 BBC

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 26637 - Posted: 09.23.2019

Alison Abbott A prominent German neuroscientist committed scientific misconduct in research in which he claimed to have developed a brain-monitoring technique able to read certain thoughts of paralysed people, Germany’s main research agency has found. The DFG’s investigation into Niels Birbaumer’s high-profile work found that data in two papers were incomplete and that the scientific analysis was flawed — although it did not comment on whether the approach was valid. In a 19 September statement, the agency, which funded some of the work, said it was imposing some of its most severe sanctions to Birbaumer, who has positions at the University of Tübingen in Germany and the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering in Geneva, Switzerland. The DFG has banned Birbaumer from applying for its grants and from serving as a DFG evaluator for five years. The agency has also recommended the retraction of the two papers1,2 published in PLoS Biology, and says that it will ask him to return the grant money that he used to generate the data underpinning the papers. “The DFG has found scientific misconduct on my part and has imposed sanctions. I must therefore accept that I was unable to refute the allegations made against me,” Birbaumer said in a statement e-mailed to Nature in response to the DFG’s findings. In a subsequent phone conversation with Nature, Birbaumer added that he could not comment further on the findings because the DFG has not yet provided him with specific details on the reasoning behind the decisions. Birbaumer says he stands by his studies, which he says, “show that it is possible to communicate with patients who are completely paralysed, through computer-based analysis of blood flow and brain currents”. © 2019 Springer Nature Limited

Keyword: Consciousness; Brain imaging
Link ID: 26636 - Posted: 09.23.2019

Patti Neighmond For people who live with chronic pain, getting up, out and moving can seem daunting. Some fear that physical activity will make their pain worse. But in fact, researchers find the opposite is true: The right kind of exercise can help reduce pain. Today, Emma Dehne agrees. Dehne is 44, lives in Chapel Hill, N.C., and works as a business officer in the office of the executive vice chancellor at the University of North Carolina. She says her commitment to exercise is relatively recent. Just a year and a half ago, Dehne pretty much avoided any physical movement she didn't have to make. Just climbing stairs was painful — "sometimes to the point where I would have to hold on to the banister to help myself up," she says, "and I couldn't even extend my leg." At times, it felt as though the ligaments in her knees "were tearing." Dehne was diagnosed around age 40 with osteoarthritis in both knees, a painful swelling and deterioration of the cushioning cartilage in those joints that reduces their range of motion. Luckily for her, she says, she worked at the Thurston Arthritis Research Center at the University of North Carolina. The woman working in the cubicle next to hers ran a program that encouraged people with osteoarthritis to start walking to help reduce their pain. Dehne was skeptical but felt she was just too young to be burdened by this disease; she agreed to give brisk walks a try. In the beginning she felt stiff, tired and out of breath. That changed quickly. © 2019 npr

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 26635 - Posted: 09.23.2019

Maryse Zeidler Frustration: that's the word Vancouverite Jacqueline Sinclair uses most often to describe her insomnia. There's the frustration of lying in bed, awake in the middle of the night, knowing how crappy she'll feel the next day. The frustration of struggling to relax as she lies awake. And the frustration of failing at what should be a basic life skill. "Knowing that the rest of the world is able to do something as simple as sleep ... it's frustrating," said Sinclair, 50, who works from home doing administration for the family's construction business. Sleep has eluded Sinclair for the past 10 years. As remedies, she has cut out caffeine, sugar and gluten. She has tried herbal teas, homeopathy and vitamins. CBD oil and prescription sleeping pills have been helpful, but they each had worrisome side effects. "I'm not sure what's next," she said. "I hope I go to bed tonight and sleep for six hours straight. Wouldn't that be fantastic?" Jacqueline Sinclair has struggled with insomnia for 10 years. She says she has tried several remedies, but none has worked effectively. (jacqueline sinclair) Dr. Ram Randhawa, a psychiatrist at the University of British Columbia's Sleep Disorders Program, says about 30 per cent of Canadians struggle with getting to or staying sleep at any given time. The prevalence of insomnia does seem to be higher among women, he said. For most people, sleep issues are a temporary problem brought on by stress or worry. For some, they can be a debilitating, life-long problem. ©2019 CBC/Radio-Canada

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 26634 - Posted: 09.23.2019

By Linda Searing Don’t feel guilty about sneaking in a nap now and then: It might be good for your heart. People who napped once or twice a week were 48 percent less likely than non-nappers to face serious cardiovascular problems — heart attack, stroke, heart failure — according to new research. The findings, published in the journal Heart, were based on nearly 3,500 adults, ages 35 to 75, who were tracked for about five years. How long people napped each time made no difference, and napping more frequently than a couple times a week did not improve the results. Sleep experts generally agree that a ­20-minute nap is all that most people need to feel refreshed and less stressed. Napping longer means waking from a deeper sleep and that can leave someone feeling groggy or fuzzy-headed. Napping late in the day also is not recommended because it can mar nighttime sleeping. The recommended amount of sleep for most adults is at least seven hours a night, with an hour or two more for people 61 and older. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than a third of Americans regularly get too little sleep. That can lead to chronic health problems, including diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, according to experts at Harvard Medical School’s Division of Sleep Medicine.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 26633 - Posted: 09.23.2019

Daniel Pfau I came out to a Christian counselor during a therapy session in 2001 when I was 14. He convinced me to engage in conversion therapy, a pseudoscientific practice to change an individual’s sexual orientation based in the assumption that such behaviors are “unnatural.” He produced an article describing a talk at that year’s American Psychological Association conference that indicated the therapy worked. This painful experience encouraged me, when I started my scientific career, to examine queerness in biology. The queer community, 25 million years (or more) in the making Understanding how complex human relationships developed requires a complete picture of our social behavior during evolution. I believe leaving out important behaviors, like same-sex sexual behavior, can bias the models we use to explain social evolution. Many researchers have postulated how queer behaviors, like same-sex sexual behavior, may have developed or how they are expressed. Recently, scientists at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT published a paper suggesting a genetic component to same-sex sexual behavior expression in modern humans. However, no studies provide an argument of when queer behavior may have arisen during humans’ evolution. Such research would push back against the assertions I encountered during my youth, that queerness is a modern aberration. © 2010–2019, The Conversation US, Inc.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 26632 - Posted: 09.21.2019

Emily Makowski When we eat sour food, we instantaneously react due to a taste-sensing circuit between the tongue and the brain. Two papers published today (September 19)—one in Cell and the other in Current Biology—show that the otopetrin-1 proton channel in the tongue’s sour taste receptors is one of the components responsible for sour taste sensing in mice. These findings add to the body of sour taste research “from the molecular level, of how these protons are transported, up to the level of how the mice are able to taste it,” says Lucie Delemotte, a computational biophysicist at KTH Royal Institute of Technology who was not involved with either study. On the tongue, each taste bud contains a cluster of taste receptor cells innervated by a gustatory nerve network. The tips of these cells have a variety of taste molecule-capturing proteins and, in the case of sour detection, proteins that are called proton channels that sense pH. A team led by Charles Zuker at Columbia University Medical Center identified a potential sour taste receptor for the first time in 2006, and he and other researchers have continued to work on clarifying the mechanics and function of that receptor along with other possible sour taste receptors. A breakthrough occurred last year when Emily Liman of the University of Southern California’s lab discovered that otopetrin-1 (also referred to as OTOP1) was a proton channel also implicated in detecting sour tastes. But the researchers stopped short of demonstrating that OTOP1 was required for sour taste sensing in an actual animal—until now. © 1986–2019 The Scientist

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 26631 - Posted: 09.21.2019

By Maureen O'Hagan, Kaiser Health News Hanging on Kimberly Repp’s office wall in Hillsboro, Ore., is a sign in Latin: “Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae,” meaning “This is a place where the dead delight in helping the living.” For medical examiners, it is a mission. Their job is to investigate deaths and learn from them, for the benefit of us all. Repp, however, is not a medical examiner; she is a microbiologist. She is also an epidemiologist for Oregon’s Washington County, where she had been accustomed to studying infectious diseases such as flu or norovirus outbreaks among the living. But in 2012 she was asked by county officials to look at suicide. The request introduced her to the world of death investigations and also appears to have led to something remarkable: in this suburban county of 600,000, just west of Portland, the suicide rate now is going down. That result is remarkable because national suicide rates have risen, despite decades-long efforts to reverse the deadly trend. Advertisement While many factors contribute to suicide, officials here believe they have chipped away at this problem through Repp’s initiative to use data—very localized data that any jurisdiction could collect. Now her mission is to help others learn how to gather and use them. New York State has just begun testing a system like Repp’s. Humboldt County in California is implementing it. She has gotten inquiries from Utah and Kentucky. Colorado, meanwhile, is using its own brand of data collection to try to achieve the same kind of turnaround. © 2019 Scientific American

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 26630 - Posted: 09.21.2019