by Sara Reardon People with epilepsy have to learn to cope with the unpredictable nature of seizures – but that could soon be a thing of the past. A new brain implant can warn of seizures minutes before they strike, enabling them to get out of situations that could present a safety risk. Epileptic seizures are triggered by erratic brain activity. The seizures last for seconds or minutes, and their unpredictability makes them hazardous and disruptive for people with epilepsy, says Mark Cook of the University of Melbourne in Australia. Like earthquakes, "you can't stop them, but if you knew when one was going to happen, you could prepare", he says. With funding from NeuroVista, a medical device company in Seattle, Cook and his colleagues have developed a brain implant to do just that. The device consists of a small patch of electrodes that measure brain wave activity. Warning light Over time, the device's software learns which patterns of brainwave activity indicate that a seizure is about to happen. When it detects such a pattern, the implant then transmits a signal through a wire to a receiver implanted under the wearer's collarbone. This unit alerts the wearer by wirelessly activating a handheld gadget with coloured lights – a red warning light, for example, signals that a seizure is imminent. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Epilepsy; Robotics
Link ID: 18107 - Posted: 05.02.2013

Distinct patterns of brain activity are linked to greater rates of relapse among alcohol dependent patients in early recovery, a study has found. The research, supported by the National Institutes of Health, may give clues about which people in recovery from alcoholism are most likely to return to drinking. "Reducing the high rate of relapse among people treated for alcohol dependence is a fundamental research issue," said Kenneth R. Warren, Ph.D., acting director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of NIH. "Improving our understanding of the neural mechanisms that underlie relapse will help us identify susceptible individuals and could inform the development of other prevention strategies." Using brain scans, researchers found that people in recovery from alcoholism who showed hyperactivity in areas of the prefrontal cortex during a relaxing scenario were eight times as likely to relapse as those showing normal brain patterns or healthy controls. The prefrontal brain plays a role in regulating emotion, the ability to suppress urges, and decision-making. Chronic drinking may damage regions involved in self-control, affecting the ability to regulate cravings and resist relapse. Findings from the study, which was funded by NIAAA, appear online at the JAMA Psychiatry website.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Brain imaging
Link ID: 18106 - Posted: 05.02.2013

By Scott O. Lilienfeld and Hal Arkowitz A German children's book from 1845 by Heinrich Hoffman featured “Fidgety Philip,” a boy who was so restless he would writhe and tilt wildly in his chair at the dinner table. Once, using the tablecloth as an anchor, he dragged all the dishes onto the floor. Yet it was not until 1902 that a British pediatrician, George Frederic Still, described what we now recognize as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Since Still's day, the disorder has gone by a host of names, including organic drivenness, hyperkinetic syndrome, attention-deficit disorder and now ADHD. Despite this lengthy history, the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD in today's children could hardly be more controversial. On his television show in 2004, Phil McGraw (“Dr. Phil”) opined that ADHD is “so overdiagnosed,” and a survey in 2005 by psychologists Jill Norvilitis of the University at Buffalo, S.U.N.Y., and Ping Fang of Capitol Normal University in Beijing revealed that in the U.S., 82 percent of teachers and 68 percent of undergraduates agreed that “ADHD is overdiagnosed today.” According to many critics, such overdiagnosis raises the specter of medicalizing largely normal behavior and relying too heavily on pills rather than skills—such as teaching children better ways of coping with stress. Yet although data point to at least some overdiagnosis, at least in boys, the extent of this problem is unclear. In fact, the evidence, with notable exceptions, appears to be stronger for the undertreatment than overtreatment of ADHD. © 2013 Scientific American,

Keyword: ADHD; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 18105 - Posted: 05.02.2013

Alison Abbott Thinking about a professor just before you take an intelligence test makes you perform better than if you think about football hooligans. Or does it? An influential theory that certain behaviour can be modified by unconscious cues is under serious attack. A paper published in PLoS ONE last week1 reports that nine different experiments failed to replicate this example of ‘intelligence priming’, first described in 1998 (ref. 2) by Ap Dijksterhuis, a social psychologist at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, and now included in textbooks. David Shanks, a cognitive psychologist at University College London, UK, and first author of the paper in PLoS ONE, is among sceptical scientists calling for Dijksterhuis to design a detailed experimental protocol to be carried out indifferent laboratories to pin down the effect. Dijksterhuis has rejected the request, saying that he “stands by the general effect” and blames the failure to replicate on “poor experiments”. An acrimonious e-mail debate on the subject has been dividing psychologists, who are already jittery about other recent exposures of irreproducible results (see Nature 485, 298–300; 2012). “It’s about more than just replicating results from one paper,” says Shanks, who circulated a draft of his study in October; the failed replications call into question the under­pinnings of ‘unconscious-thought theory’. © 2013 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Attention; Consciousness
Link ID: 18104 - Posted: 05.01.2013

By Breanna Draxler The ruse is common in spy movies—an attractive female saunters in at a critical moment and seduces the otherwise infallible protagonist, duping him into giving up the goods. It works in Hollywood and it works in real life, too. Men tend to say yes to attractive women without really scrutinizing whether or not they are trustworthy. But scientists have shown, for the first time, that a drug may be able to overcome this “honey trap,” and help men make more rational decisions. Nearly 100 men participated in the study; half were given minocycline, an antibiotic normally used to treat acne, and half were given a placebo. After four days of this drug regimen, participants played a computerized one-on-one trust game with eight different women, based only on pictures of the female players. In each round, the male player was given $13 and shown a picture of one of the female players. The male player would choose how much money he wanted to keep and how much he wanted to give to the female player. The amount given away was then tripled, and the female player would decide whether to split the money with the man or keep it all for herself. Unbeknownst to the men, however, the women kept the money every time. The researchers also asked the men to evaluate the photos of the females to determine how trustworthy and attractive they appeared, on a scale of 0 to 10.

Keyword: Emotions; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 18103 - Posted: 05.01.2013

By ALAN SCHWARZ FRESNO, Calif. — Lisa Beach endured two months of testing and paperwork before the student health office at her college approved a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Then, to get a prescription for Vyvanse, a standard treatment for A.D.H.D., she had to sign a formal contract — promising to submit to drug testing, to see a mental health professional every month and to not share the pills. “As much as it stunk, it’s nice to know, ‘O.K., this is legit,' ” said Ms. Beach, a senior at California State University, Fresno. The rigorous process, she added, has deterred some peers from using the student health office to obtain A.D.H.D. medications, stimulants long abused on college campuses. “I tell them it takes a couple months,” Ms. Beach said, “and they’re like, ‘Oh, never mind.’ ” Fresno State is one of dozens of colleges tightening the rules on the diagnosis of A.D.H.D. and the subsequent prescription of amphetamine-based medications like Vyvanse and Adderall. Some schools are reconsidering how their student health offices handle A.D.H.D., and even if they should at all. Various studies have estimated that as many as 35 percent of college students illicitly take these stimulants to provide jolts of focus and drive during finals and other periods of heavy stress. Many do not know that it is a federal crime to possess the pills without a prescription and that abuse can lead to anxiety, depression and, occasionally, psychosis. Although few experts dispute that stimulant medications can be safe and successful treatments for many people with a proper A.D.H.D. diagnosis, the growing concern about overuse has led some universities, as one student health director put it, “to get out of the A.D.H.D. business.” © 2013 The New York Times Company

Keyword: ADHD; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 18102 - Posted: 05.01.2013

By Ferris Jabr This month the American Psychiatric Association (APA) will publish the fifth edition of its guidebook for clinicians, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5. Researchers around the world have eagerly anticipated the new manual, which, in typical fashion, took around 14 years to revise. The DSM describes the symptoms of more than 300 officially recognized mental illnesses—depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and others—helping counselors, psychiatrists and general care practitioners diagnose their patients. Yet it has a fundamental flaw: it says nothing about the biological underpinnings of mental disorders. In the past, that shortcoming reflected the science. For most of the DSM's history, investigators have not had a detailed understanding of what causes mental illness. That excuse is no longer valid. Neuroscientists now understand some of the ways that brain circuits for memory, emotion and attention malfunction in various mental disorders. Since 2009 clinical psychologist Bruce Cuthbert and his team at the National Institute of Mental Health have been constructing a classification system based on recent research, which is revealing how the structure and activity of a mentally ill brain differs from that of a healthy one. The new framework will not replace the DSM, which is too important to discard, Cuthbert says. Rather he and his colleagues hope that future versions of the guide will incorporate information about the biology of mental illness to better distinguish one disorder from another. Cuthbert, whose project may receive additional funding from the Obama administration's planned Brain Activity Map initiative, is encouraging researchers to study basic cognitive and biological processes implicated in many types of mental illness. Some scientists might explore how and why the neural circuits that detect threats and store fearful memories sometimes behave in unusual ways after traumatic events—the kinds of changes that are partially responsible for post-traumatic stress disorder. Others may investigate the neurobiology of hallucinations, disruptions in circadian rhythms, or precisely how drug addiction rewires the brain. © 2013 Scientific American

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Depression
Link ID: 18101 - Posted: 05.01.2013

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR A large new study confirms that sticking to the Mediterranean diet — fish, poultry, vegetables and fruit, with minimal dairy foods and meat — may be good for the brain. Researchers prospectively followed 17,478 mentally healthy men and women 45 and older, gathering data on diet from food questionnaires, and testing mental function with a well-validated six-item screening tool. They ranked their adherence to the Mediterranean diet on a 10-point scale, dividing the group into low adherence and high adherence. The study was published April 30 in the journal Neurology. During a four-year follow-up, 1,248 people became cognitively impaired. But those with high adherence to the diet were 19 percent less likely to be among them. This association persisted even after controlling for almost two dozen demographic, environmental and vascular risk factors, and held true for both African-Americans and whites. The study included 2,913 people with Type 2 diabetes, but for them adherence to the diet had no effect on the likelihood of becoming impaired. The lead author, Dr. Georgios Tsivgoulis, an assistant professor of neurology at the University of Athens, said that this is the largest study of its kind. The Mediterranean diet, he added, “has many benefits — cardiovascular, cancer risk, anti-inflammatory, central nervous system. We’re on the tip of the iceberg, and trying to understand what is below.” Copyright 2013 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity; Alzheimers
Link ID: 18100 - Posted: 05.01.2013

By JAMES GORMAN TRONDHEIM, Norway — In 1988, two determined psychology students sat in the office of an internationally renowned neuroscientist in Oslo and explained to him why they had to study with him. Unfortunately, the researcher, Per Oskar Andersen, was hesitant, May-Britt Moser said as she and her husband, Edvard I. Moser, now themselves internationally recognized neuroscientists, recalled the conversation recently. He was researching physiology and they were interested in the intersection of behavior and physiology. But, she said, they wouldn’t take no for an answer. “We sat there for hours. He really couldn’t get us out of his office,” Dr. May-Britt Moser said. “Both of us come from nonacademic families and nonacademic places,” Edvard said. “The places where we grew up, there was no one with any university education, no one to ask. There was no recipe on how to do these things.” “And how to act politely,” May-Britt interjected. “It was just a way to get to the point where we wanted to be. But seen now, when I know the way people normally do it,” he said, smiling at the memory of his younger self, “I’m quite impressed.” So, apparently, was Dr. Andersen. In the end, he yielded to the Mosers’ combination of furious curiosity and unwavering determination and took them on as graduate students. They have impressed more than a few people since. In 2005, they and their colleagues reported the discovery of cells in rats’ brains that function as a kind of built-in navigation system that is at the very heart of how animals know where they are, where they are going and where they have been. They called them grid cells. © 2013 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 18099 - Posted: 04.30.2013

By ABIGAIL ZUGER, M.D. Addiction swallows lives whole, and not only with overdose, illness and concentric cycles of rehab and relapse. A less onerous but still tenacious kind of post-traumatic stress disorder may develop as well, with recovered addicts and their families compulsively reliving the past in private — or, like David Sheff and his son Nic, in public. In the last five years the two have written a small library of memoirs centered on Nic’s battle with substance use, with two by Nic (now 31, and sober) and the 2008 best seller by his father, “Beautiful Boy.” Now comes “Clean,” less memoir than guide for those just entering the terrain Mr. Sheff knows so well. If the book represents a certain redundancy of subject, its likely audience — those who must watch as friends and family spiral away — cannot hear too many sympathetic reiterations of the same truths. In “Clean,” Mr. Sheff changes perspective, writing as advocate and journalist rather than distraught father. Still, his story line recreates that of “Beautiful Boy,” tracing the trajectory of addiction from cradle to rehab and beyond with the same question in mind: How does a promising cleareyed kid from a good family wind up in an inconceivable sea of trouble? His answer, bludgeoned home with the repetitive eloquence of the missionary, is entirely straightforward: The child is ill. Addiction must be considered a disease, as devoid of moral overtones as diabetes or coronary artery disease, just as amenable as they are to scientific analysis, and just as treatable with data-supported interventions, not hope, prayer or hocus-pocus. © 2013 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 18098 - Posted: 04.30.2013

By Cheryl Knepper Substance abuse and dependence rarely occur in a vacuum. Today’s addict is faced with a multitude of issues that may co-exist and compromise recovery. Co-existing addictions/compulsive behaviors such as drugs and alcohol, pathological gambling, sex, food, work, internet and gaming can become chronic and progressive if left unidentified and untreated. Many of these addictions don’t only coexist, but interact, reinforce and fuse together becoming part of a package known as Addiction Interaction. The term “Addiction Interaction Disorder” was introduced by Patrick Carnes PhD in 2011. Caron Treatment Centers conducted a research study among adult patients with drug and alcohol addictions to determine what percentage may be at risk for sex and love addiction. The 485 participants were given the SAST-R (Sexual Addiction Screening Tool-Revised a 45 item forced choice (Yes/No) instrument): Carnes, Green & Carnes, 2010. The findings of this study indicated that 21 percent of individuals being treated for primary substance dependence scored at risk. Another interesting finding from the study showed a higher percentage of cannabis, cocaine and amphetamine abuse or dependence diagnosis in the individuals that scored at-risk for sexual addiction. In addition, at-risk individuals had higher percentages of mood disorder, PTSD and eating disorder diagnoses. © 2013 Scientific American

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 18097 - Posted: 04.30.2013

By Sophie Moura The year I was in fifth grade, I saw a television commercial for tampons. Like most 10-year-olds, I'd never heard of a tampon. But when I asked my mom what one was, she started crying. How do you tell your daughter that she's never going to need tampons? That she won't get her period or have babies, and that those things are the least of what sets her apart? From the outside, there was no sign that the little kid watching TV in a suburb of Pittsburgh was so different. I've always been girly — obsessed with dresses, sparkles, and the color pink, donning felt poodle skirts for Halloween and loving makeup. What isn't obvious is that I have a rare condition called androgen insensitivity syndrome, or AIS. I was born with XY chromosomes, the combination found in boys. With AIS, an XY embryo doesn't respond to the crucial hormones that tell the penis and scrotum to form. At the earliest stage of life, my body missed those signals, and I developed as a girl, with a clitoris and vulva. But what's inside me doesn't match. My parents learned this when I was 6. That year, I collapsed in the shower with a painful lump in my groin. Convinced I had a hernia, my parents, both doctors, rushed me to the hospital. But when surgeons operated (a hernia is tough to X-ray and needs to be fixed surgically), there was no twisted loop of intestine behind that bump. It was a testicle that had started descending. Across my abdomen, they found another one. The upper portion of my vagina, and my cervix, uterus, and fallopian tubes were missing. ©2013 Hearst Communication, Inc.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 18096 - Posted: 04.30.2013

By Ferris Jabr On any given day, millions of conversations reverberate through New York City. Poke your head out a window overlooking a busy street and you will hear them: all those overlapping sentences, only half-intelligible, forming a dense acoustic mesh through which escapes an exclamation, a buoyant laugh, a child’s shrill cry now and then. Every spoken consonant and vowel begins as an internal impulse. Electrical signals crackle along branching neurons in brain regions specialized for language and movement; further pulses spread across facial nerves, surge toward the throat and chest and zip down the spine. The diaphragm contracts—pulling air into the lungs—and relaxes, pushing air into that birdcage of calcium and cartilage—the larynx—within which wings of tissue draw near one another and hum. As this vibrating air enters the mouth, the tongue guides its flow and the lips give each breath a final shape and sound. Liberated syllables travel between one person and another in waves of colliding air molecules. All these conversations are matched in number and complexity by much more elusive discourses. The human brain loves soliloquy. Even when speaking with others—and especially when alone—we continually talk to ourselves in our heads. Such speech does not require the bellows in the chest, quivering flaps of tissue in the throat or a nimble tongue; it does not need to disturb even one hair cell in our ears, nor a single particle of air. We can speak to ourselves without making a sound. Stick your head out that same window above the crowded street and you will hear nothing of what people are saying to themselves privately. All that inner dialogue remains submerged beneath the ocean of human speech, like a novel written in invisible ink behind the text of another book. © 2013 Scientific American,

Keyword: Consciousness
Link ID: 18095 - Posted: 04.30.2013

By Meghan Rosen A child who is good at learning math may literally have a head for numbers. Kids’ brain structures and wiring are associated with how much their math skills improve after tutoring, researchers report April 29 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Certain measures of brain anatomy were even better at judging learning potential than traditional measures of ability such as IQ and standardized test results, says study author Kaustubh Supekar of Stanford University. These signatures include the size of the hippocampus — a string bean–shaped structure involved in making memories — and how connected the area was with other parts of the brain. The findings suggest that kids struggling with their math homework aren’t necessarily slacking off, says cognitive scientist David Geary of the University of Missouri in Columbia. “They just may not have as much brain region devoted to memory formation as other kids.” The study could give scientists clues about where to look for sources of learning disabilities, he says. Scientists have spent years studying brain regions related to math performance in adults, but how kids learn is still “a huge question,” says Supekar. He and colleagues tested IQ and math and reading performance in 24 8- and 9-year-olds, then scanned their brains in an MRI machine. The scans measured the sizes of different brain structures and the connections among them. “It’s like creating a circuit diagram,” says study leader Vinod Menon, also of Stanford. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2013

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 18094 - Posted: 04.30.2013

By TARA PARKER-POPE Are doctors nicer to patients who aren’t fat? A provocative new study suggests that they are — that thin patients are treated with more warmth and empathy than those who are overweight or obese. For the study, published in the medical journal Obesity, researchers at Johns Hopkins obtained permission to record discussions between 39 primary care doctors and more than 200 patients who had high blood pressure. Although patients were there to talk about blood pressure, not weight, most fell into the overweight or obese category. Only 28 were of normal weight, meaning they had a body mass index below 25. Of the remaining patients, 120 were obese (B.M.I. of 30 or greater) and 60 were classified as overweight (index of 25 to 30). For the most part, all of the patients were treated about the same; there were no meaningful differences in the amount of time doctors spent with them or the topics discussed. But when researchers analyzed transcripts of the visits, there was one striking difference. Doctors seemed just a bit nicer to their normal-weight patients, showing more empathy and warmth in their conversations. Although the study was relatively small, the findings are statistically significant. “It’s not like the physicians were being overtly negative or harsh,” said the lead author, Dr. Kimberly A. Gudzune, an assistant professor of general internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. “They were just not engaging patients in that rapport-building or making that emotional connection with the patient.” Copyright 2013 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity; Emotions
Link ID: 18093 - Posted: 04.30.2013

By Stephani Sutherland Itching is not the only sensation to arise from unique neurons. A team at the California Institute of Technology has identified neurons that transmit the pleasurable sensations of massage, at least in mice. The cells responded to gentle rubbing but not to pinching or poking. Activation of the cells requires “a pressure component,” says lead investigator David Anderson, a neuroscientist at Caltech, “much like you would apply if you were stroking your cat.” The team first identified the mysterious cells several years ago by an unusual protein on their surface called MrgprB4—closely related to the receptor expressed by the newly identified itch cells. The rare sensory cells make up only about 2 percent of the body's peripheral neurons that respond to external stimuli, but they seem to cover about half the skin's surface with large, branching nerve endings. Whereas sensory neurons that transmit pain have been intensely studied, this is the first demonstration in live animals of a sensory cell that gives pleasure. After the scientists activated those neurons with a designer drug, the mice came to favor the place where they received the drug, according to the paper published January 31 in Nature. © 2013 Scientific American

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 18092 - Posted: 04.30.2013

By Christie Wilcox What does your voice say about you? Our voices communicate information far beyond what we say with our words. Like most animals, the sounds we produce have the potential to convey how healthy we are, what mood we’re in, even our general size. Some of these traits are important cues for potential mates, so much so that the sound of your voice can actually affect how good looking you appear to others. Which, really, brings up one darn good question: what makes a voice sound sexy? To find out, a team spearheaded by University College London researcher Xi Yu created synthetic male and female voices and altered their pitch, vocal quality and formant spacing (an acoustics term related to the frequencies of sound), the last of which is related to body size. They also adjusted the voices to be normal (relaxed), breathy, or pressed (tense). Through several listening experiments, they asked participants of the opposite gender to say which voice was the most attractive and which sounded the friendliest or happiest. The happiest-sounding voices were those with higher pitch, whether male or female, while the angriest were those with dense formants, indicating large body size. As for attractiveness, the men preferred a female voice that is high-pitched, breathy and had wide formant spacing, which indicates a small body size. The women, on the other hand, preferred a male voice with low pitch and dense formant spacing, indicative of larger size. But what really surprised the scientists is that women also preferred their male voices breathy. “The breathiness in the male voice attractiveness rating is intriguing,” explain the authors, “as it could be a way of neutralizing the aggressiveness associated with a large body size.”

Keyword: Language; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 18091 - Posted: 04.30.2013

By YUDHIJIT BHATTACHARJEE One summer night in 2011, a tall, 40-something professor named Diederik Stapel stepped out of his elegant brick house in the Dutch city of Tilburg to visit a friend around the corner. It was close to midnight, but his colleague Marcel Zeelenberg had called and texted Stapel that evening to say that he wanted to see him about an urgent matter. The two had known each other since the early ’90s, when they were Ph.D. students at the University of Amsterdam; now both were psychologists at Tilburg University. In 2010, Stapel became dean of the university’s School of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Zeelenberg head of the social psychology department. Stapel and his wife, Marcelle, had supported Zeelenberg through a difficult divorce a few years earlier. As he approached Zeelenberg’s door, Stapel wondered if his colleague was having problems with his new girlfriend. Zeelenberg, a stocky man with a shaved head, led Stapel into his living room. “What’s up?” Stapel asked, settling onto a couch. Two graduate students had made an accusation, Zeelenberg explained. His eyes began to fill with tears. “They suspect you have been committing research fraud.” Stapel was an academic star in the Netherlands and abroad, the author of several well-regarded studies on human attitudes and behavior. That spring, he published a widely publicized study in Science about an experiment done at the Utrecht train station showing that a trash-filled environment tended to bring out racist tendencies in individuals. And just days earlier, he received more media attention for a study indicating that eating meat made people selfish and less social. © 2013 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 18090 - Posted: 04.29.2013

By Scicurious Say you are out on a camping trip with some friends. You’re in the woods, the tents are up, the beer is out, the sun is down, the campfire is starting up. As you sit there, you hear the campfire crackling loudly. To most people, the crackling of the campfire is just that: a campfire. Nothing threatening at all. But for someone with a severe anxiety disorder such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the crackling of the campfire may be associated with terrible memories, a huge conflagration during house to house fighting or a house fire that destroyed all they loved, causing them horrible distress and terrible anxiety. A campfire during a camping trip and the horrible things they endured are entirely dissimilar things, but in severe anxiety disorders, that makes no difference at all. No, this post is not about whether or not anxiety disorders are being over diagnosed. Rather, it’s about how over-generalization within the brain might influence the development of anxiety disorders. What is the difference between a house fire and a campfire? How does your brain know? It’s the idea of pattern separation, an idea that the authors of this review believe could be incredibly important in treating some types of anxiety disorders. Pattern separation is one of the many actions of the hippocampus, the large, curved area in the interior of the brain which is thought to play a role in things like memory and in disorders such as anxiety and depression. Pattern separation was originally observed related to memory, but the authors of this review propose that it may also relate to things like anxiety. © 2013 Scientific American

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 18089 - Posted: 04.29.2013

By Nathan Seppa The tobacco and fruit mixture smoked in public hookah bars might be considerably more dangerous than its pleasant scent would suggest. An analysis of people who smoked from water pipes three times a day finds that the pipes deliver more carbon monoxide and benzene, a carcinogen, than does smoking half a pack of cigarettes daily. In an upcoming issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, researchers document those and several other cancer-causing compounds that showed up in urine tests of the water-pipe smokers. The research calls into question a common assumption: that hookahs are safe. “This is a great addition to the literature,” says Thomas Eissenberg, a psychologist at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. He and his colleagues had previously found toxic substances in hookah smoke. The new paper extends his findings by detecting carcinogens and other bad actors in water-pipe smokers themselves, he says. Hookah smoking goes back hundreds of years in India, the Middle East and North Africa, but it is newer in parts of Europe and North America. The substances heated in a hookah vary. In the study, researchers used pastes chosen by the participants that were 5 to 10 percent tobacco combined with honey, molasses and bits of fruit. This paste goes in the bowl of the pipe, which is covered with a perforated piece of aluminum foil and topped with a burning piece of charcoal, says study coauthor Peyton Jacob III, a research chemist at the University of California, San Francisco. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2013

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 18088 - Posted: 04.29.2013