By C. CLAIBORNE RAY Q. Can cataracts grow back after they have been removed? A. “Once a cataract is removed, it cannot grow back,” said Dr. Jessica B. Ciralsky, an ophthalmologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Blurred vision may develop after cataract surgery, mimicking the symptoms of the original cataract. This is not a recurrence of the cataract and is from a condition that is easily treated, said Dr. Ciralsky, who is a cornea and cataract specialist. Cataracts, which affect about 22 million Americans over 40, are a clouding of the eye’s naturally clear crystalline lens. Besides blurred vision, the symptoms include glare and difficulty driving at night. In cataract surgery, the entire cataract is removed and an artificial lens is implanted in its place; the capsule that held the cataract is left intact to provide support for the new lens. After surgery, patients may develop a condition called posterior capsular opacification, which is often referred to as a secondary cataract. “This is a misnomer,” Dr. Ciralsky said. “The cataract has not actually grown back.” Instead, she explained, in about 20 percent of patients, the capsule that once supported the cataract has become cloudy, or opacified. A simple laser procedure done in the office can treat the problem effectively. © 2013 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 17979 - Posted: 04.02.2013

By John McCarthy Maybe this discovery is interesting because it sheds therapeutic light on the dreaded neurodegenerative diseases that killed Woody Guthrie and Lou Gehrig. Or maybe it’s fascination with healthy cells, and yet another unsuspected complexity in how they work. What’s discovered: a previously unknown energy source in nerve cells. It propels the molecular “motors” that drag neurotransmitters from the nucleus where they’re made. The “motors” are assemblies of molecules. They walk like clumsy robots, with a staggering gait, dragging a capsule of neurotransmitter “bullets” along microtubule “highways” between nucleus and synapses. They move by flinging their boot-like feet (lavender blobs, in the image) forward, a billionth of a meter at each step. (A superb animation of “motors” in action is XVIVO’s “Life of a Cell” (at ~1:15 of playing time)). When the cargo finally arrives at the synapses, neurotransmitters are loaded into compartments at the synapse’s interior face, like bullets into a magazine. They are ready to be “fired” across a synapse to signal an adjoining neuron. It’s this transport of neurotransmitter “bullets” that failed in Guthrie’s and Gehrig’s nerve cells. Their synapses had nothing to fire. What powers the flinging that moves those boots? Previously, the answer has been specialized molecules (acronym: ATP) spewed into the cell’s fluid interior by mitochondria. The boots, it was thought, powered each step by grabbing a floating ATP and blowing it up like a firecracker. © 2013 Scientific American

Keyword: Huntingtons
Link ID: 17978 - Posted: 04.02.2013

By DENISE GRADY A treatment that many people with multiple sclerosis had hoped would prove effective has failed its first rigorous test, according to a new study. The treatment uses balloons — the type commonly employed to open blocked arteries in people with heart disease — to widen veins in the head and neck. The technique is based on the unproven theory that narrowed veins cause multiple sclerosis by stopping blood from draining out of the brain properly, which is thought to damage nerves and the fatty sheath, myelin, that insulates them. A vascular surgeon from Italy, Dr. Paolo Zamboni, is the leading proponent of the idea. In recent years, 30,000 people around the world have flocked to clinics offering the balloon treatment, despite the lack of solid evidence for it. Many patients want it because the standard drug treatments have not helped. Multiple sclerosis is incurable and causes progressive disability that eventually forces many patients to use wheelchairs. Some people think the balloon treatment has helped them, and testimonials on the Internet have helped create a powerful demand for the procedure. Researchers at the University at Buffalo recruited 20 patients with the disease to test the theory. Half were picked at random to receive the treatment, and the other half underwent a “sham” procedure in which doctors did not actually use balloons. The patients did not know whether their veins had been expanded, and neither did the people who assessed them later. The patients were monitored for six months. There were no significant differences between the two groups in symptoms or tests used to measure the quality of life, the researchers reported last month at a meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in San Diego. In a few cases, brain lesions associated with the disease actually seemed to worsen after the treatment. © 2013 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis
Link ID: 17977 - Posted: 04.02.2013

By Scicurious Much as we all like to think we’re modest, most of us really aren’t. We might try to be humble and say “we’re just some guy, you know?“, but most often, we actually think we’re better than average. Maybe we think we’re smarter, or better looking, or nicer, or maybe even all of the above. And it turns out that thinking we’re above average (even though, statistically, only half of us CAN be above average) is actually good for us. People who suffer from depression usually show a symptom called “depressive realism”. They actually see themselves MORE REALISTICALLY than other people do. And seeing yourself in the harsh light of reality…well it’s pretty depressing (you don’t really want to know how average you are in a sea of over 6 billion people. You don’t). Thinking that you are better than you actually are is sometimes called the Dunning-Kruger effect (though that usually refers specifically to how competent you think you are…when really you’re not), but in psychology it’s called the Superiority Illusion: the belief that you are better than average in any particular metric. But where does the superiority illusion come from? How do our brains give us this optimism bias? The authors of this study wanted to look at how our brain might give us the idea that we are better than the other guy. They were particularly interested in the connection between two areas of the brain, the frontal cortex, and the striatum. The frontal cortex does a lot of higher processing (things like sense of self), while the striatum is involved in things like feelings of reward. The connection between these two areas is called the fronto-striatal circuit. And the strength of that connection may mean something for how you think of yourself. While people who think well of themselves have relatively low connectivity in this circuit, people with depression have higher levels of connectivity. The two areas are MORE connected. © 2013 Scientific American

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 17976 - Posted: 04.02.2013

By Bruce Bower Babies take a critical step toward learning to speak before they can say a word or even babble. By 3 months of age, infants flexibly use three types of sounds — squeals, growls and vowel-like utterances — to express a range of emotions, from positive to neutral to negative, researchers say. Attaching sounds freely to different emotions represents a basic building block of spoken language, say psycholinguist D. Kimbrough Oller of the University of Memphis in Tennessee and his colleagues. Any word or phrase can signal any mental state, depending on context and pronunciation. Infants’ flexible manipulation of sounds to signal how they feel lays the groundwork for word learning, the scientists conclude April 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Language evolution took off once this ability emerged in human babies, Oller proposes. Ape and monkey researchers have mainly studied vocalizations that have one meaning, such as distress calls. “At this point, the conservative conclusion is that the human infant at 3 months is already vocally freer than has been demonstrated for any other primate at any age,” Oller says. Oller’s group videotaped infants playing and interacting with their parents in a lab room equipped with toys and furniture. Acoustic analyses identified nearly 7,000 utterances made by infants up to 1 year of age that qualified as laughs, cries, squeals, growls or vowel-like sounds. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2013

Keyword: Language; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 17975 - Posted: 04.02.2013

By Felicity Muth With the historic supreme court hearings this week, there has been much discussion about homosexuality*. One of the ‘arguments’ that you often hear from the anti-gay rights side is that being gay isn’t natural. Evidence from the animal kingdom would refute this however, as same-sex behaviour is common and found in many different animals. There’s the famous example of ‘Roy’ and ‘Silo’, two male chinstrap penguins that formed a pair bond and raised a chick (‘Tango’) together, later turned into a distinctive children’s book (you can also read about their tragic breakup here – this part has yet to be made into a children’s book). Homosexuality is also common in many insects, and some flour beetle males actually mate 50% of the time with other males. But why does same-sex behaviour occur? How is it maintained by evolution? This is a complex question, and the answer is likely to differ from species to species. For example, flour beetle males that mate with other males can actually transfer to females this way. Other male insects like weevils or fruit flies may just not realise that the individual they’re mating with is also a male (it being better to mate with more animals, and get it ‘wrong’ sometimes, than be too discriminating and miss out on potentially fruitful mating attempts). However, in addition to specific cases, there may also be overarching patterns across species in how homosexuality is selected for and maintained by evolution. While many studies have concentrated on male-male sexual behaviour, females also engage in same-sex behaviour. Laysan albatrosses form female-female partnerships, performing the same mating rituals as in male-female pairs of this species, and these couples can last a lifetime. © 2013 Scientific American

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 17974 - Posted: 04.01.2013

By DAVID W. DUNLAP Words of comfort, encouragement and empathy had been available to Nancy Lanza and her son, Adam, within a pair of books that were found by the police during a search of their home in Newtown, Conn., after Mr. Lanza’s murderous rampage on Dec. 14. “It’s the most widely read book about Asperger’s out there,” said Mr. Robison of his memoir. It is all but impossible to know if mother or son were helped by the books, “Look Me in the Eye: My Life With Asperger’s” and “Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant,” or whether either opened, or even had use for, them. While those familiar with Mr. Lanza and his family have said he had an autism variant known as Asperger’s syndrome, investigators have not confirmed the diagnosis. “Look Me in the Eye” (2007), by John Elder Robison, and “Born on a Blue Day” (2006), by Daniel Tammet, are both memoirs that chronicle the painful chasm of misunderstanding that separates people with Asperger’s from the world around them. Both accounts turn hopeful as their writers grow comfortable in their own skins and more successful in communicating with others. That is why Mr. Robison, 55, said it might be expected that his book would have been found among the Lanzas’ belongings. “It’s the most widely read book about Asperger’s out there,” Mr. Robison said by telephone from his home in Amherst, Mass. “Hundreds, if not thousands, of parents have come to me in the years since that book was published to say, ‘Your stories have given me a window into the mind of my son or daughter.’ It’s not a surprise to see that book in the home of any family touched by autism.” The discovery is not entirely welcome, however, if it reinforces an imagined link between autism and violent crime — a link for which experts say there is no evidence. Americans have struggled for three and a half months to understand why Mr. Lanza killed first his mother, then 20 first graders and 6 educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School, before taking his own life. © 2013 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Autism; Aggression
Link ID: 17973 - Posted: 04.01.2013

By JUDITH GRAHAM Three years ago, Kennard Lehmann walked out of a neurologist’s office in Sacramento, Calif., newly diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, a prescription in hand and absolutely no idea where to turn for help. The doctor hadn’t given him a list of resources or discussed how Mr. Lehmann might go about finding them. Knowing nothing about Alzheimer’s, his wife swiped a magazine she had been reading in the doctor’s office to take home and read. Kennard Courtesy of Mary Margaret Lehmann. Kennard “Ken”Lehmann, with his wife, Mary Margaret Lehmann, said monthly get-togethers with other people who also have early-stage Alzheimer’s are “joyful events.” Thus began a journey all too familiar to people with Alzheimer’s — one that Mr. Lehmann, 75, describes as “being put in a box.” “They tell you, you can’t drive, you’re going to get lost,” he told me in a telephone conversation. “Don’t go out at night, you might have sundown syndrome. Don’t try to balance your checkbook, it could be too hard. All these negative things, all these things you’re told you can’t do now that you have Alzheimer’s.” But Mr. Lehmann was lucky. When he and his wife moved to Minneapolis to be near their daughter, they found a group of people like him with early-stage Alzheimer’s who met monthly to socialize and “challenge ourselves so we can continue to grow,” as he put it. The focus was on what people with early-stage dementia can do — dance, write poetry, yoga, visit museums, go to concerts, draw, enjoy one another’s company — not what is no longer within their reach. “These are joyful events,” Mr. Lehmann said, describing how his attitude toward having Alzheimer’s changed after joining the group. “There’s a lot of laughter, a lot of communication. Because we’re all in the same boat, you don’t have that feeling, ‘What is he going to think?’ Everyone there knows you have challenges. There’s no judgment.” © 2013 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 17972 - Posted: 04.01.2013

By Markham Heid As if physical fatigue and a foggy brain weren't bad enough, restless nights may also harm your heart. A new multi-year study published in the European Heart Journal finds evidence of a substantial link between insomnia and the risk of heart failure. For more than 11 years, a study team from several Scandinavian universities tracked the sleeping habits and heart failure rates of more than 50,000 men and women. The researchers focused on the three major hallmarks of insomnia: trouble falling asleep, trouble staying asleep, and waking up still feeling fatigued. Unfortunately, the results of their analysis are enough to keep a person up at night: Among participants who experienced just one of those symptoms "occasionally" or "often," rates of heart failure increased 5% and 14%, respectively, compared to those who didn't struggle with sleep. But for those who experienced all three symptoms frequently, heart failure rates more than tripled, says study co-author Lars Laugsand, PhD, of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. "Insomnia is a disorder marked by hyperarousal," Laugsand says. So instead of the restful state you should experience while sleeping, insomnia increases activity in your sympathetic nervous system, which in turn releases a flood of stress hormones into your bloodstream. This hormonal surge appears to boost blood pressure, which explains why periods of insomnia can make you feel like your heart is pounding or your body is overheating. © 2013 NBCNews.com

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 17971 - Posted: 04.01.2013

By ALAN SCHWARZ and SARAH COHEN Nearly one in five high school age boys in the United States and 11 percent of school-age children over all have received a medical diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to new data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These rates reflect a marked rise over the last decade and could fuel growing concern among many doctors that the A.D.H.D. diagnosis and its medication are overused in American children. The figures showed that an estimated 6.4 million children ages 4 through 17 had received an A.D.H.D. diagnosis at some point in their lives, a 16 percent increase since 2007 and a 53 percent rise in the past decade. About two-thirds of those with a current diagnosis receive prescriptions for stimulants like Ritalin or Adderall, which can drastically improve the lives of those with A.D.H.D. but can also lead to addiction, anxiety and occasionally psychosis. “Those are astronomical numbers. I’m floored,” said Dr. William Graf, a pediatric neurologist in New Haven and a professor at the Yale School of Medicine. He added, “Mild symptoms are being diagnosed so readily, which goes well beyond the disorder and beyond the zone of ambiguity to pure enhancement of children who are otherwise healthy.” And even more teenagers are likely to be prescribed medication in the near future because the American Psychiatric Association plans to change the definition of A.D.H.D. to allow more people to receive the diagnosis and treatment. A.D.H.D. is described by most experts as resulting from abnormal chemical levels in the brain that impair a person’s impulse control and attention skills. © 2013 The New York Times Company

Keyword: ADHD; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 17970 - Posted: 04.01.2013

Published by scicurious Today's post comes to you courtesy of Mary Roach (aka, the person I want to be when I grow up). I have a copy of her latest book, Gulp: adventures in the alimentary canal that I am reading for review, and a weird science connoisseur such as myself of course spends half her time in the bibliography section, wherein I located this paper. This paper may thus be taken as a pre-review of the book. Spoiler: so far, the book is FABULOUS, but should never be read while eating. Ah, goat milk. When I think of goat milk, I think of places like farmer's markets, Whole Foods, and little Heidi dancing through the alps. I'll admit to never having drunk raw goat milk (though I do LOVE goat cheese). But after having read this paper, I'm afraid that I do not WANT to try raw goat milk. Why? I'm afraid of the taste...the goaty taste...that is potentially hot, sexy goaty hormones. Hot sexy goat hormones sprayed around in hot, sexy goaty URINE. So, goat milk doesn't usually taste...well, goaty. Usually it tastes pretty much like cow milk (whole fat cow milk, that is). But sometimes, you'll get a bad batch. Nothing's WRONG with it, per se, it's still healthy and not bad, but it's...goaty. The flavor and smell are musky and weird, and not at all tasty. So obviously you want to find the source of that problem. For years, people who raise goats have pinpointed the MALE goat as the source of the issue. Male goats smell very goaty indeed, particularly during the goat mating season (the rutting season). Some of the odors they emit are so strong they can be smelled several hundred meters away. The odors are very volatile, so they will spread easily, and the idea has long been that if your male goat is around the ladies, his manly odors will get on them and in them, and thus in their milk, resulting in goaty milk (which, if the male goat is the cause, means that goaty milk is really just...MANLY). So goat farmers usually keep their male goats at a good distance from the females during the rutting season, to keep the males from getting their...manliness in the milk. Manliness is just not very tasty. Copyright © 2013

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste); Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 17969 - Posted: 03.30.2013

by Lizzie Wade Believe it or not, the gelada monkeys (Theropithecus gelada) on the right may be sharing a good laugh—and possibly the emotions that go along with it. Previously, only humans and orangutans had been shown to quickly and involuntarily mimic the facial expressions of their companions, an ability that seems to be linked to empathy. After spending months observing every playful interaction among the gelada population at Germany's NaturZoo, scientists are ready to add another, more distantly related species to that list. Geladas of all ages were more likely to mimic the play faces of their companions within 1 second of seeing them than they were to respond with a different kind of expression, according to a paper published by the team this week in Scientific Reports. What's more, the fastest and most frequent mimicry responses occurred between mothers and their infant offspring, like the pair pictured on the left. More research is required to determine if geladas are sharing emotional states in addition to facial expressions, but the team suggests that studying the quantity and quality of these mother-child interactions could provide a way forward. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Emotions; Evolution
Link ID: 17968 - Posted: 03.30.2013

by Hal Hodson THAT fried chicken advert is about to get even more tempting. Soon it might be pumping out the mouth-watering smell of the stuff too. Tough luck if you're a veggie. The "smelling screen", invented by Haruka Matsukura at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology in Japan and colleagues, makes smells appear to come from the exact spot on any LCD screen that is displaying the image of a cup of coffee, for example. It works by continuously feeding odours from vaporising gel pellets into four air streams, one in each corner of the screen. These air streams are blown out parallel to the screen's surface by fans, and varying the strength and direction of them manoeuvres the scent to any given spot on the screen. The airflow is gentle enough that the team have been able to create the illusion that the smell is actually wafting from a digital object on-screen. The current system only pumps out one scent at a time, but Matsukura says the next stage is to incorporate a cartridge, like those for printers, which allows smells to be changed easily. The screen was shown at the IEEE Virtual Reality conference in Orlando, Florida, last week. Matsukura suggests it could also be used to enhance advertising screensMovie Camera and museum exhibits. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste); Robotics
Link ID: 17967 - Posted: 03.30.2013

By Andrew Grant A simple plastic shell has cloaked a three-dimensional object from sound waves for the first time. With some improvements, a similar cloak could eventually be used to reduce noise pollution and to allow ships and submarines to evade enemy detection. The experiments appear March 20 in Physical Review Letters. “This paper implements a simplified version of invisibility using well-designed but relatively simple materials,” says Steven Cummer, an electrical engineer at Duke University, who was not involved in the study. Cummer proposed the concept of a sound cloak in 2007. Scientists’ recent efforts to render objects invisible to the eye are based on the fact that our perception of the world depends on the scattering of waves. We can see objects because waves of light strike them and scatter. Similarly, the Navy can detect faraway submarines because they scatter sound waves (sonar) that hit them. So for the last several years scientists have been developing cloaks that prevent scattering by steering light or sound waves around an object. The drawback of this approach, however, is that it requires complex synthetic materials that are difficult to produce. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2013

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 17966 - Posted: 03.30.2013

By Neil Bowdler BBC News UK-based scientists have designed an 'intelligent' microchip which they claim can suppress appetite. Animal trials of the electronic implant are about to begin and its makers say it could provide a more effective alternative to weight-loss surgery. The chip is attached to the vagus nerve which plays a role in appetite as well as a host of other functions within the body. Human trials of the implant could begin within three years, say its makers. The work is being led by Prof Chris Toumazou and Prof Sir Stephen Bloom of Imperial College London. It involves an 'intelligent implantable modulator', just a few millimetres across, which is attached using cuff electrodes to the vagus nerve within the peritoneal cavity found in the abdomen. The chip and cuffs are designed to read and process electrical and chemical signatures of appetite within the nerve. The chip can then act upon these readings and send electrical signals to the brain reducing or stopping the urge to eat. The researchers say identifying chemicals rather than electrical impulses will make for a more selective, precise instrument. The project has just received over 7m euros (£5.9m; $9m) in funding from the European Research Council. A similar device designed by the Imperial team has already been developed to reduce epileptic seizures by targeting the same vagus nerve. "This is a really small microchip and on this chip we've got the intelligence which can actually model the neural signals responsible for appetite control," Prof Toumazou told the BBC. BBC © 2013

Keyword: Obesity; Robotics
Link ID: 17965 - Posted: 03.30.2013

By Emily Burns Lots of people set themselves goals – like things to do by the time you’re 30. Maybe it’s to find your dream job, meet the love of your life, or travel the world! For sufferers of Cystic Fibrosis, it’s living to see your 30th birthday. Even with all of the advances in medicine and technology, the average life expectancy of someone with Cystic Fibrosis is 33 years. Cystic Fibrosis is an inherited disease that mostly affects the lungs, but also the pancreas, liver and intestines. The body fluids we need – like the mucus in our lungs and intestines – are much thicker than normal, making it extremely difficult to breathe and digest food. Constant physiotherapy, breathing exercises, diet supplements and antibiotics are needed just to get on with daily life. And all of this suffering is caused by one tiny change in our DNA, which then messes up how one single protein folds into the right shape. It’s otherwise known as a protein misfolding disease. There are over 2 million proteins in the human body, carrying out their individual tasks to keep us breathing, thinking – enabling us to live. But their production isn’t easy. It’s an incredibly intricate and specialised process that is constantly going on inside us. If it goes wrong, there are serious consequences to our health, with Cystic Fibrosis being a prime example.... While the primary causes Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s is still not known, one of the theories suggests that cellular and ER stress results in the cell death that we see. They are known as amyloid diseases, as they’re caused by the accumulation of amyloids in cells. We usually think of amyloids as being associated with Alzheimer’s, so you might think that they were a particular type of protein, but that’s not quite it. Instead, amyloids are protein delinquents: any protein that can form a beta sheet can become an amyloid. When a mutated protein misfolds, the side chains of amino acids (that dictate the specific fold) are no longer so important: the main chain of the polypeptide now causes these amyloid fibres to stick together. These amyloid fibres are formed regardless of the original folded protein structure (meaning that they form the same fibrous shape for every protein) and can penetrate the cells, causing cell stress and death. © 2013 Scientific American

Keyword: Alzheimers; Prions
Link ID: 17964 - Posted: 03.28.2013

by Sid Perkins The electric fields that build up on honey bees as they fly, flutter their wings, or rub body parts together may allow the insects to talk to each other, a new study suggests. Tests show that the electric fields, which can be quite strong, deflect the bees' antennae, which, in turn, provide signals to the brain through specialized organs at their bases. Scientists have long known that flying insects gain an electrical charge when they buzz around. That charge, typically positive, accumulates as the wings zip through the air—much as electrical charge accumulates on a person shuffling across a carpet. And because an insect's exoskeleton has a waxy surface that acts as an electrical insulator, that charge isn't easily dissipated, even when the insect lands on objects, says Randolf Menzel, a neurobiologist at the Free University of Berlin in Germany. Although researchers have suspected for decades that such electrical fields aid pollination by helping the tiny grains stick to insects visiting a flower, only more recently have they investigated how insects sense and respond to such fields. Just last month, for example, a team reported that bumblebees may use electrical fields to identify flowers recently visited by other insects from those that may still hold lucrative stores of nectar and pollen. A flower that a bee had recently landed on might have an altered electrical field, the researchers speculated. Now, in a series of lab tests, Menzel and colleagues have studied how honey bees respond to electrical fields. In experiments conducted in small chambers with conductive walls that isolated the bees from external electrical fields, the researchers showed that a small, electrically charged wand brought close to a honey bee can cause its antennae to bend. Other tests, using antennae removed from honey bees, indicated that electrically induced deflections triggered reactions in a group of sensory cells, called the Johnston's organ, located near the base of the antennae. In yet other experiments, honey bees learned that a sugary reward was available when they detected a particular pattern of electrical field. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Animal Communication
Link ID: 17963 - Posted: 03.28.2013

Pregnant women who experienced financial, emotional, or other personal stress in the year before their delivery had an increased chance of having a stillbirth, say researchers who conducted a National Institutes of Health network study. Stillbirth is the death of a fetus at 20 or more weeks of pregnancy. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, in 2006, there was one stillbirth for every 167 births External Web Site Policy. The researchers asked more than 2,000 women a series of questions, including whether they had lost a job or had a loved one in the hospital in the year before they gave birth. Whether or not the pregnancy ended in stillbirth, most women reported having experienced at least one stressful life event in the previous year. The researchers found that 83 percent of women who had a stillbirth and 75 percent of women who had a live birth reported a stressful life event. Almost 1 in 5 women with stillbirths and 1 in 10 women with livebirths in this study reported recently experiencing 5 or more stressful life events. This study measured the occurrence of a list of significant life events, and did not include the woman’s assessment of how stressful the event was to her. Women reporting a greater number of stressful events were more likely to have a stillbirth. Two stressful events increased a woman’s odds of stillbirth by about 40 percent, the researchers’ analysis showed. A woman experiencing five or more stressful events was nearly 2.5 times more likely to have a stillbirth than a woman who had experienced none. Women who reported three or four significant life event factors (financial, emotional, traumatic or partner-related) remained at increased risk for stillbirth after accounting for other stillbirth risk factors, such as sociodemographic characteristics and prior pregnancy history.

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 17962 - Posted: 03.28.2013

By Melissa Healy, Listening in on the electrical currents of teenagers’ brains during sleep, scientists have begun to hear the sound of growing maturity. It happens most intensively between the ages of 12 and 161 / 2: After years of frenzied fluctuation, the brain’s electrical output during the deepest phase of sleep — the delta, or slow-wave phase, when a child’s brain is undergoing its most restorative rest — becomes practically steady. That reduced fluctuation in electroencephalogram signals appears to coincide with what neuroscientists have described as major architectural changes in the brain that pave the way for cognitive maturity. While babies, toddlers and young children are taking in and making sense of the world, their brain cells are wiring themselves together willy-nilly, creating super-dense networks of interwoven neurons. But as we reach and progress through adolescence, neuroscientists have observed, a period of intensive “synaptic pruning” occurs in which those networks are thinned and the strongest and most evolutionarily useful remain. In a study published last week, scientists from the University of California at Davis say they believe the slowed fluctuations observed during the delta phase of teens’ sleep may be evidence of that pruning process at work. And since major mental illnesses such as schizophrenia appear to take root during adolescence, the authors of the study say the changing architecture of sleep may offer clues as to how and when mental illness sets in. © 1996-2013 The Washington Post

Keyword: Sleep; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 17961 - Posted: 03.28.2013

By Bruce Bower Children with autism may understand more about how other people think than they’re usually given credit for. The trick to exposing this awareness, a new study finds, is to motivate these youngsters to show what they know. In a lab game that requires a child to compete with two adults for a prize, many kids with autism demonstrate insight into how other people’s thoughts shape their behavior, say psychologist Candida Peterson of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and her colleagues. The finding suggests that previous research testing this ability, called theory of mind, underestimates how well youngsters with autism can interpret other people’s actions, Peterson’s team reports March 19 in Developmental Science. Studies published since 1985 have found that most high-functioning individuals with autism — those who have serious social and language problems but average or better IQs — fail a standard theory of mind test at least through adolescence. Kids without autism usually pass the test by age 5. In the standard test, called the Sally-Anne test, children watch an experimenter play with a doll named Sally, who has a covered basket, and a doll named Anne, who has a box. Sally puts a marble in her basket and leaves. Anne moves Sally’s marble to the box. Kids with autism usually indicate that, when Sally returns, she will look for her marble in the box, failing to recognize that Sally falsely believes the marble remains in her basket. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2013

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 17960 - Posted: 03.28.2013