/ By Lynne Peeples Reaching behind a low bookshelf slightly taller than a typical 5-year-old — and one topped with a Seattle Seahawks gnome and stuffed kangaroo — Sara Barbee presses a button labeled “Alert.” Intense bluish light fills her classroom, and nearly all 17 kindergarteners respond with a collective “Whoooaaaaa.” Barbee, their teacher here at Renton Park Elementary School, walks back to the front of the classroom and ushers the students to sit “crisscross applesauce” on the perimeter of a brightly colored alphabet rug. Front-and-center rests a water tank atop a small blue table, which Barbee uses to teach her students about the buoyancy of objects in water. Indeed, it’s not the buoyancy lesson that has drawn me to this school just outside of Seattle, but those funky new lights, which are designed to mimic the shifting colors and intensities of the rising and setting sun. Scientists believe that exposure to bright, blue-rich white light during the day, and to softer, amber hues at night, helps restore the human body’s natural circadian rhythm, a deeply ingrained, physiological drumbeat that, many experts argue, has been disrupted to ill-effect by our constant exposure to standard incandescent or fluorescent lighting — and more recently, to the relentless glow of electronic screens. These are not, of course, new ideas, and doctors have long prescribed light boxes and related paraphernalia for seasonal affective disorder and other forms of depression. But it’s only now, proponents say — amid innovations in light-emitting diode, or LED, technology; amid calls for more energy-efficient lighting infrastructure overall; and amid a renaissance in scientific understanding of how human eyes, brains, and internal clocks interrelate — that a public health revolution, driven by more thoughtful lighting infrastructure, has the potential to unfold. Copyright 2018 Undark

Keyword: Biological Rhythms; Depression
Link ID: 25003 - Posted: 05.21.2018

Michaeleen Doucleff Six months ago, Melissa Nichols brought her baby girl, Arol, home from the hospital. And she immediately had a secret. "I just felt guilty and like I didn't want to tell anyone," says Nichols, who lives in San Francisco. "It feels like you're a bad mom. The mom guilt starts early, I guess." Across town, first-time mom Candyce Hubbell has the same secret — and she hides it from her pediatrician. "I don't really want be lectured," she says. "I know what her stance will be on it." The way these moms talk about their secret, you might think they're putting their babies in extreme danger. Perhaps drinking and driving with the baby in the car? Or smoking around the baby? But no. What they're hiding is this: They hold the baby at night while they sleep together in the bed. Here in the U.S., this is a growing trend among families. More moms are choosing to share a bed with their infants. Since 1993, the practice in the U.S. has grown from about 6 percent of parents to 24 percent in 2015. But the practice goes against medical advice in the U.S. The American Academy of Pediatrics is opposed to bed-sharing: It "should be avoided at all times" with a "[full-]term normal-weight infant younger than 4 months," the AAP writes in its 2016 recommendations for pediatricians. The organization says the practice puts babies at risk for sleep-related deaths, including sudden infant death syndrome, accidental suffocation and accidental strangulation. About 3,700 babies die each year in the U.S. from sleep-related causes. © 2018 npr

Keyword: Sleep; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 25002 - Posted: 05.21.2018

Robin McKie, science editor Fasting every other day to lose weight could have damaging side effects. That is the conclusion of a group of scientists speaking this weekend at the European Society of Endocrinology’s annual meeting. Their findings suggest that fasting-based diets may impair the action of sugar-regulating hormone insulin, and lead to increased risk of diabetes. Care should be taken before starting such programmes, say researchers. Ana Bonassa, whose team from the University of São Paulo in Brazil carried out the study, said: “This is the first study to show that, despite weight loss, intermittent fasting diets may actually damage the pancreas and affect insulin function in normal healthy individuals, which could lead to diabetes and serious health issues.” Advertisement In recent years intermittent fasting diets have gained popularity. Participants fast for two days out of seven, or on alternate days. However, evidence of their success has been contradictory and there is debate among doctors about their potential to trigger harmful long-term effects. Previous research has also shown that short-term fasting can produce molecules called free radicals, highly reactive chemicals that can cause damage to cells in the body and which may be associated with impaired organ function, cancer risk and accelerated ageing. © 2018 Guardian News and Media Limited

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 25001 - Posted: 05.21.2018

By Matthew Hutson Parents tend to favor children of one gender in certain situations—or so evolutionary biologists tell us. A new study used data on colored backpack sales to show that parental wealth may influence spending on sons versus daughters. In 1973 biologist Robert Trivers and computer scientist Dan Willard published a paper suggesting that parents invest more resources, such as food and effort, in male offspring when times are good and in female offspring when times are bad. According to the Trivers-Willard hypothesis, a son given lots of resources can outcompete others for mates—but when parents have few resources, they are more inclined to invest them in daughters, who generally find it easier to attract reproductive partners. Trivers and Willard further posited that parental circumstances could even influence the likelihood of having a boy or girl, a concept widely supported by research across vertebrate species. Studying parental investment after birth is difficult, however, and has produced conflicting results. The new study looked for a metric of such investment that met several criteria: it should be immune to inherent sex differences in the need for resources; it should measure investment rather than outcomes; and it should be objective rather than rely on self-reporting. Study author Shige Song, a sociologist at Queens College, City University of New York, examined spending on pink and blue backpacks purchased in China in 2015 from a large retailer, JD.com. He narrowed the data to about 5,000 bags: blue backpacks bought by households known to have at least one boy and pink ones bought by households known to have at least one girl. The results showed that wealthier families spent more on blue versus pink backpacks—suggesting greater investment in sons. Poorer families spent more on pink packs than blue ones. The findings were published online in February in Evolution and Human Behavior. © 2018 Scientific American

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 25000 - Posted: 05.21.2018

Emine Saner On any given day in Cambridge, you may see numerous people jogging along the towpaths, and it’s not unreasonable to assume neuroscientists may be over-represented. “You see so many,” says Hannah Critchlow, a neuroscientist who likes to jog along the river. Physical fitness may be a secondary consideration, she says; what they are really trying to do is ramp up their neurogenesis – the birth of new nerve cells in the brain. “People used to think that once you were born, that was it, that was all the nerve cells you have throughout life,” she says. “Then, 20 years ago, Rusty Gage [a professor at the Salk Institute in California] discovered that you get neurogenesis in adults, in a region of the brain called the hippocampus, which is involved in learning and memory. It turns out that jogging is really good at increasing neurogenesis in the brain.” And so, Critchlow says with a laugh, she likes to run. “I go: ‘This is wonderful, my neurogenesis is really happy with me at the moment.’” We are sitting in her study at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where Critchlow is outreach fellow, tasked with public engagement. Once described by the Telegraph as “a sort of female Brian Cox”, she has given numerous talks, been a presenter on Tomorrow’s World Live, the interactive version of the BBC science show, appeared on TV, radio and podcasts and was named as a top 100 scientist for her work in science communication. She has just written a book on consciousness – part of the Ladybird Expert series aimed at adults, a brief but mindbending introduction to the brain and the idea of consciousness, taking in philosophy, famous neuroscience breakthroughs and brain facts. © 2018 Guardian News and Media Limited

Keyword: Consciousness
Link ID: 24999 - Posted: 05.19.2018

Jon Hamilton For the first time, the U.S. military is speaking publicly about what it's doing to address potential health risks to troops who operate certain powerful shoulder-mounted weapons. These bazooka-like weapons produce forceful explosions just inches from the operator's head. Though several scientific reports over the past year have noted the possible risk, until now military officials have been reluctant to speak publicly about whether repeated exposure to these blasts might result in injury to a shooter's brain. Tracie Lattimore, who directs the Army's traumatic brain injury program, agreed to an interview with NPR to talk about steps the military is taking. "We are leaning in and trying to do everything in our power to protect soldiers and service members while they continue to get their job done," says Lattimore, who works in the Office of the Army Surgeon General. She describes a wide-ranging effort that's already begun and includes scientific research on troops' exposure to blast during weapons training, enforcing limits on the firing of certain weapons, and even looking into whether special helmets could help stop blast waves. The Army also has plans to monitor service members' total blast exposure during their military careers, Lattimore says. And even as the Army starts to take preventive measures, some basic questions still need answers. © 2018 npr

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 24998 - Posted: 05.19.2018

Nicola Davis The proportion of young people using marijuana as their first drug doubled in the 10 years from 2004, a US-based study has found. The government study reveals that among people aged between 12 and 21, the proportion of those who tried cigarettes as their first drug fell from about 21% to just under 9% between 2004 and 2014. However, the proportion who turned first to marijuana almost doubled from 4.4% to 8%. While some studies have suggested that, overall, use and abuse of marijuana has fallen among teenagers in the US, the latest research sought to look at trends in which drug, if any, young people turned to first. “We have, particularly in the US, done prevention programmes that are really focused on alcohol and tobacco – and they are relatively easy arguments to make to young people,” said Dr Renee Johnson, a co-author of the study from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. But she said the “fear factor” is less likely to work for marijuana, noting that public programmes need instead to educate young people so they can make good decisions around drugs, and offer support to help them cope with difficulties in life and think about their life plans. “Once we teach young people about that, that will address the unhealthy marijuana use,” she said. The study, published in the journal Prevention Science, is based on an analysis of data from more than 275,000 participants aged between 12 and 21 collected as part of the US national survey on drug use and health – an annual study that involves participants across all 50 states who are interviewed in person. © 2018 Guardian News and Media Limited

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 24997 - Posted: 05.19.2018

By Emily Underwood *Update, 18 May, 10 a.m.: Yesterday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first in a new class of drugs designed to prevent migraines. This feature, originally published on 7 January 2016, describes the history of these drugs, the powerful relief they can bring some patients, and the limitations that still exist with them. As long as she can remember, 53-year-old Rosa Sundquist has tallied the number of days per month when her head explodes with pain. The migraines started in childhood and have gotten worse as she’s grown older. Since 2008, they have incapacitated her at least 15 days per month, year-round. Head-splitting pain isn’t the worst of Sundquist’s symptoms. Nausea, vomiting, and an intense sensitivity to light, sound, and smell make it impossible for her to work—she used to be an office manager—or often even to leave her light-proofed home in Dumfries, Virginia. On the rare occasions when she does go out to dinner or a movie with her husband and two college-aged children, she wears sunglasses and noise-canceling headphones. A short trip to the grocery store can turn into a full-blown attack “on a dime,” she says. Every 10 weeks, Sundquist gets 32 bee sting–like injections of the nerve-numbing botulism toxin into her face and neck. She also visits a neurologist in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who gives her a continuous intravenous infusion of the anesthetic lidocaine over 7 days. The lidocaine makes Sundquist hallucinate, but it can reduce her attacks, she says—she recently counted 20 migraine days per month instead of 30. Sundquist can also sometimes ward off an attack with triptans, the only drugs specifically designed to interrupt migraines after they start. © 2018 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 24996 - Posted: 05.19.2018

by Joel Achenbach The National Institutes of Health has ordered a halt to a $100 million, 10-year study of moderate drinking that’s being funded in large part by the alcoholic-beverage industry. Thursday morning’s announcement by NIH Director Francis Collins reflects the seriousness of allegations that surfaced in news reports in recent months, including a story in March in the New York Times that described two scientists and a federal health official pitching the idea for the study to liquor company executives at a 2014 gathering in Palm Beach, Fla. The alcohol industry agreed to fund the research via a private foundation that supports NIH. The goal of the study, which involves 7,000 individuals, is to assess whether moderate drinking — a single drink a day — has a health benefit. Some research has suggested such a benefit, but the conclusion remains controversial, and the U.S. dietary guidelines recommend that people who do not drink alcohol should not start. The Moderate Alcohol and Cardiovascular Health (MACH) trial is based at Harvard’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a grantee of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Collins has ordered two reviews of the study. The first, by the Office of Management Assessment, will “determine if any process or conduct irregularities occurred with grants associated with the MACH Trial,” according to NIH. The second review, by an advisory committee to Collins, will examine the scientific merit of the study. “NIH has requested that the grantee, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, pause all study activities until the reviews are completed,” NIH said in a brief announcement that gave no further details on the reasons for the pause. NIH said Thursday that the reviews are expected to be concluded in June. © 1996-2018 The Washington Post

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 24995 - Posted: 05.18.2018

By Gina Kolata The first medicine designed to prevent migraines was approved by the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday, ushering in what many experts believe will be a new era in treatment for people who suffer the most severe form of these headaches. The drug, Aimovig, made by Amgen and Novartis, is a monthly injection with a device similar to an insulin pen. The list price will be $6,900 a year, and Amgen said the drug will be available to patients within a week. Aimovig blocks a protein fragment, CGRP, that instigates and perpetuates migraines. Three other companies — Lilly, Teva and Alder — have similar medicines in the final stages of study or awaiting F.D.A. approval. “The drugs will have a huge impact,” said Dr. Amaal Starling, a neurologist and migraine specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix. “This is really an amazing time for my patient population and for general neurologists treating patients with migraine.” Millions of people experience severe migraines so often that they are disabled and in despair. These drugs do not prevent all migraine attacks, but can make them less severe and can reduce their frequency by 50 percent or more. As a recent editorial in the journal JAMA put it, they are “progress, but not a panacea.” Until now, drugs used to prevent migraines were designed to treat other diseases, like high blood pressure. They are not very effective, may work only temporarily, and often are laden with intolerable side effects. In clinical trials, people taking the new drugs reported no more side effects than those taking a placebo. The side effects over the long term and among people with chronic diseases remain to be determined. © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 24994 - Posted: 05.18.2018

By Ruth Williams | The sun’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation is a major cause of skin cancer, but it offers some health benefits too, such as boosting production of essential vitamin D and improving mood. Today (May 17), a report in Cell adds enhanced learning and memory to UV’s unexpected benefits. Researchers have discovered that, in mice, exposure to UV light activates a molecular pathway that increases production of the brain chemical glutamate, heightening the animals’ ability to learn and remember. “The subject is of strong interest, because it provides additional support for the recently proposed theory of ultraviolet light’s regulation of the brain and central neuroendocrine system,” dermatologist Andrzej Slominski of the University of Alabama who was not involved in the research writes in an email to The Scientist. “It’s an interesting and timely paper investigating the skin-brain connection,” notes skin scientist Martin Steinhoff of University College Dublin’s Center for Biomedical Engineering who also did not participate in the research. “The authors make an interesting observation linking moderate UV exposure to . . . [production of] the molecule urocanic acid. They hypothesize that this molecule enters the brain, activates glutaminergic neurons through glutamate release, and that memory and learning are increased.” While the work is “fascinating, very meticulous, and extremely detailed,” says dermatologist David Fisher of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, “it does not imply that UV is actually good for you. . . . Across the board, for humanity, UV really is dangerous.” © 1986-2018 The Scientist

Keyword: Intelligence; Vision
Link ID: 24993 - Posted: 05.18.2018

By Abby Olena The gut-brain axis is line of communication between the two organs, involved in everything from brain development to the progression of neurological diseases, with gut microbiota often pitching in to the conversation. In a study published today (May 16) in Nature, researchers present evidence that multiple sclerosis (MS) may also be influenced by commensal microbes in the gut acting upon cells in the brain. They show in a mouse model of the disease that metabolites from gut bacteria alter the behavior of microglia—immune cells that reside in the brain—which in turn regulate the activity of astrocytes to promote or prevent inflammation. The authors also found evidence in vitro and in patient samples that a similar gut-brain connection exists in people with MS, suggesting that microbes and the cells that receive their signals could be targets for disease treatment. “The beauty of this paper is that it provides a very detailed mechanistic understanding of how things work,” Jonathan Kipnis, a neuroscientist at the University of Virginia who did not participate in the study, tells The Scientist. Previous research linked the microbiome and the development of MS in mice, he says, but “we never understood how the gut communicates with the brain.” In work published in Nature Medicine in 2016, Francisco Quintana of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and colleagues found part of the answer to the question of gut-brain communication. In that study, they showed that mouse and human astrocytes—star-shape glial cells—respond to molecules generated by microbes from the intestine. And because prior work from other groups had demonstrated that microglia can regulate astrocyte behavior, Quintana says, “one of the biggest unanswered questions we had is: what mediates the crosstalk between microglia and astrocytes?” © 1986-2018 The Scientist

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis; Glia
Link ID: 24992 - Posted: 05.18.2018

Prion diseases are slow degenerative brain diseases that occur in people and various other mammals. No vaccines or treatments are available, and these diseases are almost always fatal. Scientists have found little evidence of a protective immune response to prion infections. Further, microglia — brain cells usually involved in the first level of host defense against infections of the brain — have been thought to worsen these diseases by secreting toxic molecules that can damage nerve cells. Now, scientists have used an experimental drug, PLX5622, to test the role of microglia against scrapie, a prion disease of sheep. PLX5622 rapidly kills most of the microglia in the brain. When researchers gave the drug to mice infected with scrapie, microglia were eliminated and the mice died one month faster than did untreated mice. The results, published in the Journal of Virology by researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, suggest that microglia can defend against a prion infection and thus slow the course of disease. The scientists hypothesize that microglia trap and destroy the aggregated prion proteins that cause brain damage. The findings suggest that drugs that increase the helpful activity of microglia may have a role in slowing the progression of prion diseases. Researchers are now studying the details of how microglia may be able to destroy prions in the brain. The scientists note that microglia could have a similar beneficial effect on other neurodegenerative diseases associated with protein aggregation, such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.

Keyword: Prions; Glia
Link ID: 24991 - Posted: 05.18.2018

By Diana Kwon When Eliza O’Neill was 3 years old, her parents, Glenn and Cara, noted that her development began to diverge from that of her peers. Their once fast-learning, gregarious child faced difficulties in school, and her improvements in areas such as social communication and speech began to slow. It took about six months and multiple visits to the doctor for Eliza to be diagnosed with Sanfilippo syndrome, a rare lysosomal storage disease in which sugar molecules called glycosaminoglycans build up in the central nervous system, destroying cells and eventually causing severe dementia, seizures, and a loss of mobility. The disease strikes between 1 and 9 out of 1,000,000 people, and most children affected do not survive beyond their teens. The diagnosis, which Eliza’s doctors made in July 2013, was like “a lightning bolt out of the sky,” Glenn recalls. “I didn’t even know that a disease as terrible as this could even exist.” In the weeks following Eliza’s diagnosis, the O’Neills combed the scientific literature looking for a way to save their daughter. Their research led them to a potential gene therapy for Sanfilippo under investigation at Nationwide Children’s Hospital (NCH) in Columbus, Ohio. At the time, the work was still in the preclinical stage, but “the data were amazing,” says Cara, a pediatrician. Once she found this study, she contacted Haiyan Fu, a scientist at NCH’s Center for Gene Therapy working on the experiments, who walked her through the research. “That was the first moment that I had a real solid hope in the science,” Cara recalls. © 1986-2018 The Scientist

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 24990 - Posted: 05.18.2018

By Simon Baron-Cohen, The Austrian paediatrician Hans Asperger has long been recognized as a pioneer in the study of autism. He was even seen as a hero, saving children with the condition from the Nazi killing programme by emphasizing their intelligence. However, it is now indisputable that Asperger collaborated in the murder of children with disabilities under the Third Reich. Historian Herwig Czech fully documented this in the April 2018 issue of Molecular Autism (a journal I co-edit; see H. Czech Mol. Autism 9, 29; 2018). Now, historian Edith Sheffer’s remarkable book Asperger’s Children builds on Czech’s study with her own original scholarship. She makes a compelling case that the foundational ideas of autism emerged in a society that strove for the opposite of neurodiversity. Advertisement These findings cast a shadow on the history of autism, already a long struggle towards accurate diagnosis, societal acceptance and support. The revelations are also causing debate among autistic people, their families, researchers and clinicians over whether the diagnostic label of Asperger’s syndrome should be abandoned. In 1981, psychiatrist Lorna Wing published the paper in Psychological Medicine that first brought Asperger’s clinical observations to the attention of the English-speaking medical world, and coined the term Asperger’s syndrome (L. Wing Psychol. Med. 11, 115–129; 1981). A decade later, in the book Autism and Asperger Syndrome (1991), developmental psychologist Uta Frith translated into English the 1944 treatise by Asperger in which he claimed to have discovered autism. © 2018 Scientific American

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 24989 - Posted: 05.18.2018

Nicola Davis People who experience disrupted 24-hour cycles of rest and activity are more likely to have mood disorders, lower levels of happiness and greater feelings of loneliness, research suggests. While the study does not reveal whether disruptions to circadian rhythms are a cause of mental health problems, a result of them or some mixture of the two, the authors say the findings highlight the importance of how we balance rest and activity. “Because people have these 24-hour patterns of living nowadays and because by 2050 two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities where circadian disruption is much more likely, it is quite a big public health issue. How do we take account of our natural patterns of rest and activity and how do we design cities or jobs to protect people’s mental health?” said Daniel Smith, professor of psychiatry at the University of Glasgow and lead author of the research. Writing in the journal Lancet Psychiatry, a team of researchers from Scotland, Ireland and Sweden report how they carried out the largest study of its kind to date by harnessing data from the UK BioBank, a research endeavour that has collected health information on 500,000 participants, aged between 37 and 73, since 2006. To explore the link between mental health and the 24-hour cycles of sleep and activity known as circadian rhythms, the team looked at data from more than 91,000 participants who had worn a wrist-based activity tracker for a week at some point between 2013 and 2015. © 2018 Guardian News and Media Limited

Keyword: Biological Rhythms; Depression
Link ID: 24988 - Posted: 05.17.2018

by Ariana Eunjung Cha Women having trouble getting pregnant sometimes try yoga, meditation or mindfulness, and some research suggests that psychological stress may affect infertility. But what about men: Does their mental state affect a couple's ability to conceive? The latest research on this subject was published Thursday in the journal Fertility and Sterility and suggests that a link between mental health and fertility may exist for women and men. The study involved data from 1,650 women and 1,608 men who were recruited through the National Institutes of Health's Reproductive Medicine Network at six sites in the United States. Most of the participants were couples, and they were undergoing some kind of fertility treatment, such as ovarian stimulation medication or artificial insemination, but not in vitro fertilization. Based on a questionnaire, about 6 percent of the women and 2 percent of the men were rated as having major depression. While the number of men with major depression in the analysis was small — just 34 — an analysis found differences between them and the other men in the study. Those with major depression were 60 percent less likely to have a live birth than men who did not have major depression. More specifically, of the 34, only three of the couples, or less than 9 percent, achieved a live birth. That compares with nearly 25 percent having a live birth for couples in which the male partner did not have major depression. © 1996-2018 The Washington Post

Keyword: Depression; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 24987 - Posted: 05.17.2018

By Jeremy Rehm A man may be attractive because of his curly, blond hair or slick pin-striped suit, but strip everything away and one luring—maybe evolutionary—piece remains, a new study finds: how proportional his body is, especially his legs. Women prefer a man with legs that are about half his height, according to previous research; scientists believe that is an evolutionary result of women wanting to choose only healthy men. Legs that are too short, for example, have been linked to type 2 diabetes. But other proportions, such as arm length to body height or whether the elbow and knee divide a limb in half, can also relate to a person’s health. Do they influence women’s views as well? To answer this, researchers collected average body proportions from roughly 9000 men in the U.S. military and used them to create computer-generated images of male models (pictured). The scientists made the model’s arms and legs slightly longer or shorter, and then asked more than 800 heterosexual U.S. women to rank each model’s attractiveness. © 2018 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 24986 - Posted: 05.17.2018

By Abdul-Kareem Ahmed “Dad, hold still.” As we entered the hospital room that morning, our patient’s daughter was attempting to give him a shave. He was bed-bound after his operation and had grown a salt-and-pepper stubble. A week earlier, his wife had brought him to the emergency room . He was behaving oddly, mumbling nonsensical sentences and stumbling through the house. Sixty-two years old, male, Caucasian, new and profound neurological symptoms. An M.R.I. of his brain seemed redundant but confirmed the diagnosis: A four-centimeter malignant tumor was invading his right frontal cortex, the seat of his personality, where “Dad” lived. I’m drawn to the human brain, its unforgiving and protean nature. Just five minutes without oxygen, and the brain loses function. The occipital cortex processes visual information and allows us to see faces, trees, the stars. However, in a young child who becomes blind, as with Helen Keller, this same cortex can be repurposed for entirely distinct functions, like language processing. Early astronomers looked to the heavens for answers. But in the human brain, a three-pound ball of fat, there resides enough mystery and potential to have satisfied Galileo, Kepler and Brahe. And so I found myself, on what had now been a four-year foray toward a career in neurosurgery, helping care for this patient. I was the sub-intern at a hospital away from home for the month. It was my first week on the job. The resident and I stood around his bed in our cerulean scrubs and white coats and watched him smiling. His daughter looked toward me, the only other male in the room, and paused, razor in hand. © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 24985 - Posted: 05.17.2018

By Shawn Hayward Brenda Milner has collected her share of awards, prizes, honourary degrees and other recognitions throughout her amazing career, but there is something special about being recognized with top honours from the city and province she has called home since 1944, all within one week. On May 8, the Speaker of the National Assembly of Quebec, Jacques Chagnon presented Milner with its Medal of Honour, along with seven other Quebecers including McGill alumna Dr. Joanne Liu. The Medal of Honour is awarded to public figures from all walks of life who, through their career, their work or their social commitment, have earned the recognition of the Members of the National Assembly and the people of Quebec. Milner added to that recognition the title of Commander of the Order of Montreal, given to her by Mayor Valérie Plante during a ceremony at City Hall on May 14. The Order of Montreal was created on the city’s 375th anniversary to recognize women and men who have contributed in a remarkable way to the city’s development and reputation. There are three ranks in the Order, Commander being the highest. A celebrated researcher at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (The Neuro), Milner turns 100 years old on July 15. She is the Dorothy J. Killam Professor at The Neuro, and a professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University. © 2018 McGill Reporter ·

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 24984 - Posted: 05.17.2018