By Mitch Leslie Colin Wahl, a market research consultant in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was recovering nicely from triple bypass surgery last year when he noticed a white spot on the incision. It proved to be an obstinate infection that required three further surgeries to eradicate. Wahl, now 61, says his mind hasn't been as sharp since. "It's little things mostly related to memory." An avid recreational hockey player, he would forget to bring his skates or sticks to the rink. Certain words became elusive. Just hours after talking to a colleague about Tasmania, he couldn't recall the word. Instead, he says, the phrase "Outback Australia" was stuck in his mind. "I'm trying to remember something and something else slips into that memory slot." Many of us can recount a similar story about a friend, colleague, or loved one—usually elderly—whose mental condition deteriorated after a visit to an operating room. "The comment that ‘So-and-so has never been the same after the operation’ is pervasive," says anesthesiologist Roderic Eckenhoff of the University of Pennsylvania. Often, surgical patients are beset by postoperative delirium—delusions, confusion, and hallucinations—but that usually fades quickly. Other people develop what has been dubbed postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD), suffering problems with memory, attention, and concentration that can last months or even a lifetime. POCD not only disrupts patients' lives, but may also augur worse to come. According to a 2008 study, people who have POCD 3 months after they leave the hospital are nearly twice as likely to die within a year as are surgical patients who report no mental setbacks. With the ballooning senior population needing more surgeries, "this is going to become an epidemic," says anesthesiologist Mervyn Maze of the University of California, San Francisco. © 2017 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Attention; Sleep
Link ID: 23691 - Posted: 06.01.2017

By Sally Adee Older people who received transfusions of young blood plasma have shown improvements in biomarkers related to cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and heart disease, New Scientist has learned. “I don’t want to say the word panacea, but here’s something about teenagers,” Jesse Karmazin, founder of startup Ambrosia, told New Scientist. “Whatever is in young blood is causing changes that appear to make the ageing process reverse.” Since August 2016, Karmazin’s company has been transfusing people aged 35 and older with plasma – the liquid component of blood – taken from people aged between 16 and 25. So far, 70 people have been treated, all of whom paid Ambrosia to be included in the study. Karmazin spoke to New Scientist ahead of presenting some of the results from the study at the Recode conference in Los Angeles today. These results come from blood tests conducted before and a month after plasma treatment, and imply young blood transfusions may reduce the risk of several major diseases associated with ageing. Blood biomarkers None of the people in the study had cancer at the time of treatment, however Karmazin’s team looked at the levels of certain proteins called carcinoembryonic antigens. These chemicals are found in the blood of healthy people at low concentrations, but in larger amounts these antigens can be a sign of having cancer. © Copyright New Scientist Ltd.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 23690 - Posted: 06.01.2017

Meghan Rosen The first thing you’ll notice is the noise. Monitors beep steadily, relentlessly, ready to sound a car-alarm blare if a baby is in trouble. The air has an astringent odor — not clean exactly, but reminiscent of an operating room (there’s one next door). Ceiling lights shine fluorescent white. Half are off, but glare from the monitors throws out extra light. It’s midday on a Friday, but it’ll be just as bright at midnight. Here on the fourth floor of Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital, 10 tiny beds hold 10 tiny infants, each with Band-Aid–like patches stuck to their bodies to continuously monitor health. Between beds, nurses squeeze through narrow aisles crammed with folding chairs and plastic incubators. This space, one of five in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit, has the people and equipment needed to keep sick babies alive — heart rate monitors, oxygen tanks, IV poles to deliver medications. Until recently, Yale’s NICU and hundreds like it across the country were considered the place to be for newborns withdrawing from opioid drugs. But now, as the number of drug-dependent babies surges, doctors here and elsewhere are searching for better options. “We’re really focused on trying to get these kids out of the NICU,” says Yale pediatrician Matthew Grossman. “We’re looking at moms and the dads as the first line of treatment.” The nationwide rate of babies withdrawing from opioids has soared — up nearly 400 percent from 2000 to 2012. The booming numbers are the bleak by-product of the United States’ ongoing battle with the drugs: Sales of prescription opioid pain relievers alone quadrupled from 1999 to 2010, and overdose deaths tripled from 2000 to 2014. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2017

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 23689 - Posted: 06.01.2017

Giuseppe Gangarossa Could it be possible to run a normal existence without social life? Indeed, sociability is an important aspect for individuals and social interaction builds our lives. In fact, social interaction enhances quality of life and improves the stability of communities. Impaired sociability is a classical symptom observed in many neuropsychiatric disorders including autism, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety and generalized fear. Interestingly, many studies have pointed to the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), a brain area located in the ventromedial part of the frontal lobe, as key region involved in the neural bases of sociability (Valk et al, 2015; Treadway et al., 2015; Frith et al., 2007). The prelimbic cortex (PL) and the infralimbic cortex (IL), two subregions of the mPFC, have been strongly suggested to play an important role in the neural mechanisms underlying sociability as isolation rearing in rats results in impaired social behavior and structural modifications in the PL and IL. Isolation rearing is a neurodevelopmental manipulation that produces neurochemical, structural, and behavioral alterations in rodents that in many ways are consistent with psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, anxiety and depression. In particular, it has been shown that isolation rearing can alter the volume of mPFC, the dendritic length and the spine density of pyramidal neurons. However, the detailed mechanisms involved in sociability disorders remain elusive and poorly understood. A recent article published in Plos ONE by Minami and colleagues aimed at measuring neural activity in the PL and IL of control and isolated rats during social interaction in order to determine whether there is neural activity related to social behavior in these areas.

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 23688 - Posted: 06.01.2017

By Ariana Eunjung Cha Depression is usually considered an issue parents have to watch out for starting in the turbulent teenage years. The CW channel, full of characters with existential angst about school, friends and young love, tells us so, as do the countless parenting books about the adolescent years in every guidance counselor's office. But what if by that time it's already too late? A large new study out this week contains some alarming data about the state of children's mental health in the United States, finding that depression in many children appears to start as early as age 11. By the time they hit age 17, the analysis found, 13.6 percent of boys and a staggering 36.1 percent of girls have been or are depressed. These numbers are significantly higher than previous estimates. Understanding the risk of depression is critically important because of the close link between depressive episodes and serious issues with school, relationships and suicide. While researchers have long known about the gender gap in depression, with more adult women than men suffering from the condition, the new numbers show that whatever divergent paths boys and girls take happens even earlier than expected. Published in the journal Translational Psychiatry, the study was based on data compiled from in-person interviews with more than 100,000 children who participated in the National Survey of Drug Use and Health from 2009 to 2014. The NSDUH is an annual survey on a representative sample of the U.S. population. Among the standard questions asked are ones about insomnia, irritability, and feelings of guilt or worthlessness that researchers used to “diagnose” survey participants with depression using diagnostic criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Through the survey, they were able to capture a broader group of children than those who have a formal diagnosis and who may be in treatment. © 1996-2017 The Washington Post

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 23687 - Posted: 06.01.2017

Laurel Hamers Last year, Joan Peay slipped on her garage steps and smashed her knee on the welcome mat. Peay, 77, is no stranger to pain. The Tennessee retiree has had 17 surgeries in the last 35 years — knee replacements, hip replacements, back surgery. She even survived a 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak that sickened her and hundreds of others, and killed 64. This knee injury, though, “hurt like the dickens.” When she asked her longtime doctor for something stronger than ibuprofen to manage the pain, he treated her like a criminal, Peay says. His response was frustrating: “He’s known me for nine years, and I’ve never asked him for pain medicine other than what’s needed after surgery,” she says. She received nothing stronger than over-the-counter remedies. A year after the fall, she still lives in constant pain. Just five years ago, Peay might have been handed a bottle of opioid painkillers for her knee. After all, opioids — including codeine, morphine and oxycodone — are some of the most powerful tools available to stop pain. Hitting opioid receptors in the peripheral nervous system keeps pain messages from reaching the brain. But opioids can cause problems by overstimulating the brain’s reward system and binding to receptors in the brain stem and gut. But an opioid addiction epidemic spreading across the United States has soured some doctors on the drugs. Many are justifiably concerned that patients will get hooked or share their pain pills with friends and family. And even short-term users risk dangerous side effects: The drugs slow breathing and can cause constipation, nausea and vomiting. |© Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2017

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 23686 - Posted: 05.31.2017

By David Z. Hambrick Physical similarities aside, we share a lot in common with our primate relatives. For example, as Jane Goodall famously documented, chimpanzees form lifelong bonds and show affection in much the same way as humans. Chimps can also solve novel problems, use objects as tools, and may possess “theory of mind”—an understanding that others may have different perspectives than oneself. They can even outperform humans in certain types of cognitive tasks. These commonalities may not seem all that surprising given what we now know from the field of comparative genomics: We share nearly all of our DNA with chimpanzees and other primates. However, social and cognitive complexity is not unique to our closest evolutionary cousins. In fact, it is abundant in species with which we would seem to have very little in common—like the spotted hyena. For more than three decades, the Michigan State University zoologist Kay Holekamp has studied the habits of the spotted hyena in Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve, once spending five years straight living in a tent among her oft-maligned subjects. One of the world’s longest-running studies of a wild mammal, this landmark project has revealed that spotted hyenas not only have social groups as complex as those of many primates, but are also capable of some of the same types of problem solving. This research sheds light on one of science’s greatest mysteries—how intelligence has evolved across the animal kingdom. According to the social brain hypothesis, intelligence has evolved to meet the demands of social life. The subject of many popular articles and books, this hypothesis posits that the complex information processing that goes along with coexisting with members of one’s own species—forming coalitions, settling disputes, trying to outwit each other, and so on—selects for larger brains and greater intelligence. By contrast, the cognitive buffer hypothesis holds that intelligence emerges as an adaption to dealing with novelty in the environment, in whatever form it presents itself. © 2017 Scientific American,

Keyword: Intelligence; Evolution
Link ID: 23685 - Posted: 05.31.2017

Nicola Davis Being in a state of anxiety makes it harder to read the emotions of others, researchers have claimed. Difficulties in interpreting the facial expressions of others have previously been linked to a number of psychiatric disorders, while people with a greater tendency to be anxious have been found to have a greater sensitivity to faces showing fear. However, it was not clear whether such effects existed among people who experience a situation that triggers anxiety. “We were specifically trying to answer the question: how does our current level of anxiety influence how we see the world, and in particular emotions in faces?” said Marcus Munafò, professor of biological psychology at the University of Bristol and a co-author of the new study. To tackle the conundrum, Munafò and colleagues from the University of Bristol looked at the impact of an anxiety-inducing situation on the ability of 21 healthy participants to interpret emotion in facial expressions. The participants’ general tendencies to worry about situations varied, but none had anxiety disorders. The participants were each fitted with a face mask delivering either normal air, or air enriched with carbon dioxide – an approach known to induce worry and tension, as well as a raised heart rate and blood pressure. After completing each part of the study, the participants repeated the experiment breathing the alternative type of air.

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 23684 - Posted: 05.31.2017

By Sharon Begley, STAT Living in a city makes people develop schizophrenia. Tell me more: The claim is not quite that stark, but it’s close. For a study published last week, researchers interviewed 2,063 British twins (some identical, some not) at age 18 about “psychotic experiences” they’d had since age 12—such as feeling paranoid, hearing voices, worrying their food might be poisoned, and having “unusual or frightening” thoughts. Among those who lived in the most densely populated large cities, 34 percent reported such experiences; 24 percent of adolescents in rural areas did. The twins are part of a long-running study that has followed them from birth in 1994-95, so the researchers— led by Helen Fisher of King’s College London and Candice Odgers of Duke University—also knew the teens’ family income, parents’ education, where they lived, and more. Conclusion: 18-year-olds raised in big cities were 67 percent more likely to have had psychotic experiences, the researchers reported in Schizophrenia Bulletin. They then used standard statistics tools to account for possible psychosis-related factors other than cities per se. Cities have more people who are poor and uneducated, which are risk factors for schizophrenia and other forms of psychosis, so they controlled for socioeconomic status. Family psychiatric history raises the risk of an individual’s developing psychosis, and since there is some evidence that people with mental illness move to cities, which have more treatment facilities, the researchers controlled for this, too. They also controlled for drug use, some forms of which are more common in urban than rural areas. These calculations brought the extra risk of psychosis among urban teens down to 43 percent. © 2017 Scientific American,

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Stress
Link ID: 23683 - Posted: 05.31.2017

By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS Exercise may bolster the brain function and thinking skills of people with dementia, according to a new report. The study’s findings suggest that walking a few times per week might alter the trajectory of the disease and improve the physical well-being of people who develop a common form of age-related memory loss that otherwise has few treatments. The study looked at vascular cognitive impairment, the second most frequent form of dementia worldwide, after the better-known Alzheimer’s disease. The condition arises when someone’s blood vessels become damaged and blood no longer flows well to the brain. It is often associated with high blood pressure and heart disease. One of the particular hallmarks of vascular dementia in its early stages, researchers have found, is that it tends to make the brain function less efficiently. In past brain-scan studies, people with a diagnosis of vascular cognitive impairment generally showed more neural activity in parts of their brains that are involved with memory, decision-making and attention than did people without the disease, indicating that their brains had to work harder during normal thinking than healthier brains did. But while a great deal of research attention has been devoted to Alzheimer’s disease, less has been known about the progression of and potential curbs on vascular dementia. Some research has indicated that reducing blood pressure lessens the symptoms of the disease. Exercise can likewise improve blood pressure and cardiovascular health. And some research suggests that frequent, brisk walks may improve memory and physical abilities in those in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. But, rather surprisingly, few past studies had examined whether exercise might also improve brain function in people with vascular dementia. So for the new study, which was published in April in The British Journal of Sports Medicine, researchers at the University of British Columbia in Canada and other institutions decided to look into the effects of walking on this type of dementia. © 2017 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 23682 - Posted: 05.31.2017

By Alice Klein A DRUG normally used to treat narcolepsy and excessive daytime sleepiness also seems to improve symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms. The finding supports the idea that ADHD might be a sleep disorder. People who have been diagnosed with ADHD find it difficult to concentrate and are generally hyperactive. But many with the condition also find it difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep at night, and feel drowsy during the day. Could this mean ADHD is a type of sleep disorder? After all, the brain pathways involved in paying attention have also been linked to sleep. And there’s some evidence of similarly disrupted patterns of chemical signalling in the brains of people with sleep disorders and ADHD. One suggestion is that the circadian rhythm that controls our sleep-wake cycle over each 24 hour period may be misaligned in people with ADHD, causing them to be sleepy or alert at the wrong times. This idea inspired Eric Konofal at Robert-Debré Hospital in Paris to try using a drug for narcolepsy and excessive daytime sleepiness to treat ADHD. Mazindol mimics the effects of a brain chemical called orexin, which modulates wakefulness and appetite. It works as a stimulant to keep us awake, and is lacking in people with narcolepsy, who tend to fall asleep at inappropriate times.

Keyword: ADHD; Sleep
Link ID: 23681 - Posted: 05.31.2017

By Emily Underwood Viewed under a microscope, your tongue is an alien landscape, studded by fringed and bumpy buds that sense five basic tastes: salty, sour, sweet, bitter, and umami. But mammalian taste buds may have an additional sixth sense—for water, a new study suggests. The finding could help explain how animals can tell water from other fluids, and it adds new fodder to a centuries-old debate: Does water have a taste of its own, or is it a mere vehicle for other flavors? Ever since antiquity, philosophers have claimed that water has no flavor. Even Aristotle referred to it as “tasteless” around 330 B.C.E. But insects and amphibians have water-sensing nerve cells, and there is growing evidence of similar cells in mammals, says Patricia Di Lorenzo, a behavioral neuroscientist at the State University of New York in Binghamton. A few recent brain scan studies also suggest that a region of human cortex responds specifically to water, she says. Still, critics argue that any perceived flavor is just the after-effect of whatever we tasted earlier, such as the sweetness of water after we eat salty food. “Almost nothing is known” about the molecular and cellular mechanism by which water is detected in the mouth and throat, and the neural pathway by which that signal is transmitted to the brain, says Zachary Knight, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco. In previous studies, Knight and other researchers have found distinct populations of neurons within a region of the brain called the hypothalamus that can trigger thirst and signal when an animal should start and stop drinking. But the brain must receive information about water from the mouth and tongue, because animals stop drinking long before signals from the gut or blood could tell the brain that the body has been replenished, he says. © 2017 American Association for the Advancement of Science. A

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 23680 - Posted: 05.31.2017

By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN, M.D. Evidence continues to mount that professional athletes in a number of contact sports are suffering brain damage as a result of head impacts. But there is no reliable test to detect the injury, called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, in its earliest stages. Even if a doctor strongly suspects that an athlete’s confusion or memory loss is related to C.T.E., proof can only be obtained on autopsy. Now a small study of National Football League players suggests another possibility: that the signs of C.T.E. may be found with a low-cost, noninvasive test that tracks changes in conversational language years before symptoms appear. If it works, the linguistic test also would be valuable in assessing the effectiveness of treatments to prevent cognitive damage because of C.T.E. or to slow its progression. In the study, to be published this week in the journal Brain and Language, researchers at Arizona State University tracked a steeper decline in vocabulary size and other verbal skills in 10 players who spoke at news conferences over an eight-year period, compared with 18 coaches and executives who had never played professional football and who also spoke in news conferences during the same period. The players included seven quarterbacks, one nose tackle, one cornerback and one wide receiver. Although the small sample size and limited study period prevented reaching definitive conclusions, the findings underscored the need for larger, long-term studies of changes in spoken and written language that could be harbingers of severe brain damage later in life. And not just for injuries related to C.T.E. Development of a reliable linguistic tool could also help evaluate head injuries among military personnel and victims of domestic violence, said Dr. Javier Cardenas, who directs the Concussion and Brain Injury Center at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix. © 2017 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion; Language
Link ID: 23679 - Posted: 05.30.2017

Nicola Davis People from ethnic minorities have up to a five times greater risk of psychotic disorders than the white British population, researchers say. A new study reveals that the trend holds in both urban and rural settings, with first-generation migrants who arrive in the UK in childhood among those at increased risk. The team behind the study say a number of factors could be at play, including stresses related to the migration process, discrimination and issues related to isolation and integration. James Kirkbride, a psychiatric epidemiologist from University College London and co-author of the research, described the figures as shocking. It’s time to tackle mental health inequality among black people “If this was any other disorder we would be horrified and up in arms and we would be campaigning from a public health perspective on how we could reduce this level of suffering,” he said. “There is a massive health inequality and it hasn’t got much attention.” While psychosis is rare – rates in England stand at about 30 cases per 100,000 people per year – Kirkbride says more should be done to offer services to those in need and to unpick drivers behind raised risks. “In the present climate when issues about migration are at the forefront of the public’s mind, people from ethnic minority backgrounds may face additional stresses that could potentially contribute to mental health problems,” he added. Writing in the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin, Kirkbride and colleagues from the University of Cambridge and a collection of NHS foundation trusts describe how they looked at trends among 687 people in the east of England.

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 23678 - Posted: 05.30.2017

Rebecca Hersher Diagnosing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can be difficult. The symptoms of the disorder, as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, or DSM, have changed multiple times. Even if you know what to look for, many of the symptoms are pretty general, including things like trouble focusing and a tendency to interrupt people. Discerning the difference between people who have a problem and those who are just distracted requires real expertise. Which is why many people were excited when earlier this year a World Health Organization advisory group endorsed a six-question screening test that a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported could reliably identify adults with ADHD. A lot of people were intrigued by the seeming simplicity of the screening. We reported on it, including one implication of the study's findings: that there could be a significant population of U.S. adults with undiagnosed ADHD. But that may not be the case, and even if it is, some ADHD researchers say the six-question screening test is not necessarily the simple diagnostic solution its proponents hope it will be. "Despite the questions put out by WHO and mentioned in JAMA, in America if your talents and temperament don't match your goals and aspirations, that incongruity generates a series of feelings or behaviors that match quite nicely the diagnostic criteria in the DSM-V," explains Dr. Lawrence Diller, a behavioral pediatrician and ADHD specialist who has been following trends in ADHD diagnosis and medication since the mid-1990s. © 2017 npr

Keyword: ADHD
Link ID: 23677 - Posted: 05.30.2017

Irwin Feinberg, One of the grand strategies nature uses to construct nervous systems is to overproduce neural elements, such as neurons, axons and synapses, and then prune the excess. In fact, this overproduction is so substantial that only about half of the neurons mammalian embryos generate will survive until birth. Why do some neural connections persist, whereas others do not? A common misconception is that neurons that do not make the cut are defective. Although some may indeed be damaged, most simply fail to connect to their chemically defined targets. In a series of brilliant studies performed during the latter half of the 20th century, researchers discovered how pruning works. They found that newborn neurons migrate along chemically defined routes and that when the neurons arrive at their genetically assigned locations, they compete with their “sibling” neurons to connect with predetermined targets. Victorious neurons receive trophic, or nourishing, factors that allow their survival; unsuccessful neurons fade away in a process called apoptosis, or cell death. The timing of cell death is genetically programmed and occurs at different points in the embryonic development of each species. For decades neuroscientists believed that neural pruning ended shortly after birth. But in 1979 the late Peter Huttenlocher, a neurologist at the University of Chicago, demonstrated that this excess production and pruning strategy actually continues for synapses long after birth. Using electron microscopy to analyze carefully selected autopsied human brains, he showed that synapses—the tiny connections between neurons—proliferate after birth, reaching twice their neonatal levels by mid- to late childhood, and then decrease precipitously during adolescence. © 2017 Scientific American

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 23676 - Posted: 05.30.2017

By JANE E. BRODY A neighbor of mine was recently told he has a devastating neurological disorder that is usually fatal within a few years of diagnosis. Though a new drug was recently approved for the illness, treatments may only slow progression of the disease for a time or extend life for maybe two or three months. He is a man of about 60 I’ve long considered the quintessential Mr. Fix-it, able to repair everything from bicycles to bathtubs. Now he is facing amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease — a disease that no one yet knows how to fix. I can only imagine what he is going through because he does not want to talk about it. However, many others similarly afflicted have openly addressed the challenges they faced, though it is usually up to friends and family to express them and advocate for more and better research and public understanding. A.L.S. attacks the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control voluntary muscle movements, like chewing, walking, breathing, swallowing and talking. It is invariably progressive. Lacking nervous system stimulation, the muscles soon begin to weaken, twitch and waste away until individuals can no longer speak, eat, move or even breathe on their own. Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that between 14,000 and 15,000 Americans have A.L.S., which makes it sound like a rare disease, but only because life expectancy is so short. A.L.S. occurs throughout the world, and it is probably far more common than generally thought. Over the course of a lifetime, one person in about 400 is likely to develop it, a risk not unlike that of multiple sclerosis. But with the rare exception of an outlier like the brilliant physicist Stephen Hawking, who has had A.L.S. for more than 50 years, it usually kills so quickly that many people do not know anyone living with this disease. Only one person in 10 with A.L.S. is likely to live for a decade or longer. © 2017 The New York Times Company

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease
Link ID: 23675 - Posted: 05.29.2017

A daily 30-minute regimen designed to help elderly surgery patients stay oriented can cut the rate of postoperative delirium in half and help them return home sooner, according to a test among 377 volunteers in Taipei. After they were moved out of an intensive care unit, 15.1 percent given conventional treatment experienced delirium. But when hospital workers got patients moving faster, helped them brush their teeth, gave them facial exercises and talked to them in ways to help them understand what was happening, the delirium rate was just 6.6 percent. And while the patients who didn’t get the intervention typically stayed in the hospital for 14 days, those who did were discharged an average two days sooner. The study “draws needed attention to delirium,” which can cause problems when confused patients, for example, try to extricate themselves from the tubes and equipment needed to recover, said Lillian Kao, acute care surgery chief for McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, who wasn’t involved with the study. Estimates of delirium’s prevalence vary widely, ranging from 13 percent to 50 percent among people who have non-heart surgery, according to an editorial accompanying the study, which appears in JAMA Surgery. © 1996-2017 The Washington Post

Keyword: Alzheimers; Attention
Link ID: 23674 - Posted: 05.29.2017

By Alex Hickson This totally unique mash-up between neuroscience and art shows the stunningly complex beauty of the human brain. Your brain is terrifyingly complicated and is made up of approximately 86 billion neurons which work together as a biological machine to create who you are. But it takes some real cranium contortion to get your head around what those billions of signals and connected web of cells look like. Artist and neuroscientist Dr Greg Dunn combined talents with artist and physicist Dr Brian Edwards to produce this unprecedented work of wonder. But the shimmering never-before-achieved works of art are not as they appear. They are not brain scans but have been painstakingly created using a combination of neuroscience research, hand drawing, computer simulations and all finished off with glistening gold leaf. Both the artists say they wanted the work to remind people that the most marvelous machine in the universe is in our own heads and hope that the brilliant display will reveal the root of our shared humanity. ‘Self Reflected was created not to simplify the brain’s functionality for easier consumption, but to depict it as close to its native complexity as possible so that the viewer comes away with a visceral and emotional understanding of its beauty,’ they write.

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 23673 - Posted: 05.29.2017

By Julie Hecht I have been scaring dog lovers for nearly a decade, and Tamas Farago—lead researcher behind a new study on dog growls and cross-species communication—is mostly to blame. I met Farago in 2010 when visiting his research group—the Family Dog Project at Eotvos Lorand University—to conduct my Masters research. By then, Farago was already immersed in the study of dog vocalizations—particularly their barks and growls—so when my study concluded and it was time to leave Budapest, I departed with not only a deep appreciation for paprika and palinka, but also a few audio clips of dogs growling, courtesy of Farago. Since then, whenever I give a talk about canine science, audience members are sure to chuckle, their faces brightening, as recordings of a dog’s breathy, garbled, fast-paced, play growls take over the room. But when I play the low, elongated aggressive growls corresponding to a dog being approached by a threatening stranger or a dog guarding food, even my hair will often stand up. These growls mean business. If a dog happens to be attending the talk—not that I hold lectures for dogs, but if a human brought their dog—I take note before playing the growls. This is because a 2010 study by Farago and colleagues found that dogs not only listen to growls, but extract meaningful information from them. Here’s how they figured this out: In the study, dogs entered a room where they came across a bone. Fine. Normal so far. Just a bone sitting all alone. But unbeknownst to the dogs, a speaker was concealed in a covered crate sitting just behind the bone, and as the dogs approached, one of three growls was played from the speaker (food guarding, threatening stranger, or play). Excellent work sneaky researchers! © 2017 Scientific American

Keyword: Animal Communication; Language
Link ID: 23672 - Posted: 05.29.2017