By Steven Ross Pomeroy Everyone enjoys the occasional practical joke – assuming the gag isn’t mean-spirited or overly perilous, even the prank’s poor victim can appreciate the punch line! I’m sure you have your favorites: gluing dollars to sidewalks, filling your co-worker’s office with balloons, moving your roommate’s bed to the basement… while he’s sleeping in it. More typical stunts may employ whoopee cushions, fake vomit, and hand buzzers, but honestly, those are a tad sophomoric and overdone. Thus, in an effort to elevate the standard of stunts, I’d like to present a gag that makes use not of stink bombs, but of science. How to implant false memories in your friends, in four steps: In The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan argued that implanting false memories in people is not only possible, but is actually pretty easy when attempted in the proper settings with a gullible subject, He cited as examples people who, at the urging of therapists or hypnotists, genuinely start to believe that they’d been abducted by UFOs or falsely remember being abused as a child. For these people, the distinction between memory and imagination becomes blurred, and events that never actually took place become sewn into their memories as real events. They can even describe these false remembrances incredibly vividly – as if they actually happened! “Memory can be contaminated,” Sagan wrote. “False memories can be implanted even in minds that do not consider themselves vulnerable and uncritical.” © 2013 Scientific American

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 17827 - Posted: 02.20.2013

By Hristio Boytchev, Believing that brains can be trained through the use of specialized computer programs, researchers are focusing on helping people with schizophrenia, which can cause them to hear imagined voices or believe that others are controlling or plotting against them. There are medications for the often-disabling disorder, but they have severe side effects and don’t get rid of all symptoms; many people will not stick with the drugs. A California company, Posit Science, is developing a computer game that it hopes will become the first to earn approval from the Food and Drug Administration for treating schizophrenia. The idea comes from Michael Merzenich, an emeritus professor of neuroscience at the University of California at San Francisco and a co-founder of Posit Science. Merzenich is something of a living legend in neuroscience, a co-inventor of cochlear implants and one of the pioneers of the theory of neuroplasticity, which asserts that the brain continues to develop throughout a lifetime. Treating schizophrenia with brain training is based on the theo­ry that the confusion and fear the disease creates may occur because the brain’s expectations about what will happen do not match up with what actually happens. That disconnect might be traced to a problem with verbal and auditory processing of information, something that brain training targets. © 1996-2013 The Washington Post

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 17826 - Posted: 02.19.2013

Diet pop and other artificially sweetened products may cause us to eat and drink even more calories and increase our risk for obesity and Type 2 diabetes, researchers are learning. Former McGill University researcher Dana Small specializes in the neuropsychology of flavour and feeding at Yale University in New Haven, Conn. Small said there's mounting evidence that artificial sweeteners have a couple of problematic effects. Sugar substitutes such as sucralose and aspartame are more intensely sweet than sugar and may rewire taste receptors so less sweet, healthier foods aren't as enjoyable, shifting preferences to higher calorie, sweeter foods, she said. Small and some other researchers believe artificial sweeteners interfere with brain chemistry and hormones that regulate appetite and satiety. For millennia, sweet taste signalled the arrival of calories. But that's no longer the case with artificial sweeteners. "The sweet taste is no longer signalling energy and so the body adapts," Small said in an interview with CBC News. "It's no longer going to release insulin when it senses sweet because sweet now is not such a good predictor of the arrival of energy." Susan Swithers, a psychology professor at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., studies behavioural neuroscience. "Exposure to high-intensity sweeteners could change the way that sweet tastes are processed," she says. © CBC 2013

Keyword: Obesity; Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 17825 - Posted: 02.19.2013

By Ingrid Wickelgren How many times have you arrived someplace but had no memory of the trip there? Have you ever been sitting in an auditorium daydreaming, not registering what the people on stage are saying or playing? We often spin through our days lost in mental time travel, thinking about something from the past, or future, leaving us oblivious to what is happening right around us right now. In doing so, we miss much of life. We also make ourselves relatively miserable, and prone to poor performance and mishaps. peaceful scene, village by the water. The opposite mental state, mindfulness, is a calm, focused awareness of the present. Cultivating that state is associated with improvements in both mental and physical health, as you will learn from the current cover story of Scientific American Mind (see “Mindfulness Can Improve Your Attention and Health” by Amishi P. Jha). It can even ameliorate mental illness. It turns out that mindfulness training works in large part by training our ability to pay attention. As we learn to focus on the here and now, we also learn to manipulate our mental focus more generally. The ability to direct our own minds at will means we control what we think about. It is no wonder that honing such a skill can make us happier. It can also boost the performance of soldiers, surgeons, athletes and many others who need to maintain a tight focus on what they are doing. Some people are naturally more mindful than others, but it is possible to train yourself to enter this state more often. Simple exercises performed as little as 12 minutes daily can help you become more mindful. For a sample exercise, watch this video “Learn to Live in the Now.” © 2013 Scientific American

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 17824 - Posted: 02.19.2013

By Sandra G. Boodman, Ian Liu’s back was killing him — and no matter what he tried, it wasn’t getting better. The 39-year-old Coast Guard officer assumed he had wrenched his back caring for his infant son, not surprising given his long history of lower back problems. But this time, the pain was much more intense and persistent, and neither physical therapy nor painkillers seemed to help. For more than a month, Liu shuttled between two Washington area military hospitals, searching for an explanation and, especially, relief. “It was the worst pain I’d ever had,” Liu recalled. A series of tests failed to explain his deteriorating condition, which stumped the medical personnel who treated him. It was only after Liu’s wife confided that he sometimes seemed disoriented that a doctor looked beyond the obvious problem and discovered the source of Liu’s pain. The cause turned out to be unrelated to his orthopedic history — and far more serious than a bad back. Liu first noticed the pain on a Friday night, Dec. 3, 2004, after he finished bathing the youngest of his three sons. “I assumed it was just from bending over the tub,” recalled Liu, who figured it would improve with time, as such problems had in the past. But the next day, his pain was worse, and as he wheeled his shopping cart around a Northern Virginia commissary, Liu was glad he had something to lean on. © 1996-2013 The Washington Post

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 17823 - Posted: 02.19.2013

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News BOSTON — The brain-mapping project that the Obama administration wants to facilitate isn't necessarily aimed at adding billions of dollars to the money already being spent on research, according to the scientists who inspired the idea. Instead, it's aimed at harnessing new technologies to uncover the secrets of neural function less expensively and more completely. "We can bring down the cost and increase the quality of the technology," said Harvard geneticist George Church, one of the researchers who proposed the Brain Activity Map Project last year. "We are trying to work with current funding [levels] to bring down the cost." The New York Times reported on Monday that the White House has embraced the idea of having the Office of Science and Technology Policy spearhead the project, with participation by the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies. The federal initiative is to be unveiled as early as next month, the Times quoted its sources as saying. The roots of the project go back months if not years earlier: The goals of the BAM Project were outlined last June in a white paper appearing in the journal Neuron. The researchers proposed a 15-year international effort to map the functions of the brain's complex neural circuitry to an unprecedented degree — using traditional tools such as magnetic resonance imaging in combination with novel technologies such as nanosensors and wireless fiber-optic probes that can be implanted into the brain, and genetically engineered cells that can be linked up with brain cells to record their activity. © 2013 NBCNews.com

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 17822 - Posted: 02.19.2013

By SINDYA N. BHANOO Humans and many other mammals see and hear in stereo. But what about smell? “People have wondered for a long time whether smell has this component as well,” said Kenneth C. Catania, a biologist at Vanderbilt University. Now he and colleagues report in the journal Nature Communications that common moles, which are blind, have the ability and use it to swiftly locate prey. Dr. Catania created a chamber with food wells spaced around a semicircle and watched as moles detected the food. The chamber was sealed, so changes in air pressure would indicate that the animals were sniffing. Moving their noses back and forth, the moles zeroed in on the food in less than five seconds. Dr. Catania then blocked one of the moles’ nostrils with a plastic tube. When the left nostril was blocked, the moles veered off to the right, and when the right was blocked, they veered to left. Although they were still able to find the food, it took them much longer. To confirm that the moles use stereo sniffing, Dr. Catania put plastic tubes in both nostrils and then crossed them. This confused the moles, causing them to think that food to their right was actually located to their left. But their response confirmed that the moles in fact use stereo sniffing, Dr. Catania said. Previous research indicates that rats can smell in stereo, and there are suggestions that sharks and ants can, too. “The jury is still out on how many animals can do this, and that will tell us how primitive this is,” Dr. Catania said. “If only a few animals do it, then it may have evolved recently.” So can humans smell in stereo? Unlikely, he said. © 2013 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 17821 - Posted: 02.19.2013

By Rachel Ehrenberg BOSTON — For the first time, researchers have snapped pictures of mouse inner ear cells using an approach that doesn’t damage tissue or require elaborate dyes. The approach could offer a way to investigate hearing loss — the most common sensory deficit in the world — and may help guide the placement of cochlear devices or other implants. Inner ear damage and the deafness that results have long challenged scientists. The small delicate cochlea and associated parts are encased in the densest bone in the body and near crucial anatomical landmarks, including the jugular vein, carotid artery and facial nerve, which make them difficult to access. With standard anatomical imaging techniques such as MRI, the inner ear just looks like a small grey blob. “We can’t biopsy it, we can’t image it, so it’s very difficult to figure out why people are deaf,” said ear surgeon and neuroscientist Konstantina Stankovic of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston. Stankovic and her colleagues took a peek at inner ear cells using an existing technique called two-photon microscopy. This approach shoots photons at the target tissue, exciting particular molecules that then emit light. The researchers worked with mice exposed to 160 decibels of sound for two hours —levels comparable to the roaring buzz of a snowmobile or power tools. Then they removed the rodents’ inner ears, which includes the spiraled, snail-shaped cochlea and other organs. Instead of cutting into the cochlea, the researchers peered through the “round window” — a middle ear opening covered by a thin membrane that leads to the cochlea. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2013

Keyword: Hearing; Brain imaging
Link ID: 17820 - Posted: 02.19.2013

By Erin Wayman BOSTON — The taste for alcohol may be an ancient craving. The ability to metabolize ethanol — the alcohol in beer, wine and spirits — might have originated in the common ancestor of chimpanzees, gorillas and humans roughly 10 million years ago, perhaps when this ancestor became more terrestrial and started eating fruits fermenting on the ground. Chemist Steven Benner of the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Gainesville, Fla., reached that conclusion by “resurrecting” the alcohol-metabolizing enzymes of extinct primates. Benner and his colleagues estimated the enzymes’ genetic code, built the enzymes in the lab and then analyzed how they work to understand how they changed over time. “It’s like a courtroom re-enactment,” said biochemist Romas Kazlauskas of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Benner “can re-enact what happened in evolution.” Benner proposed the idea February 15 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Today, humans rely on an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase 4, or ADH4, to break down ethanol. The enzyme is common throughout the esophagus, stomach and intestines, and is the first alcohol-metabolizing enzyme that comes into contact with what a person drinks. Among primates, not all ADH4s are the same — some can’t effectively metabolize ethanol. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2013

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Evolution
Link ID: 17819 - Posted: 02.19.2013

By Erin Wayman BOSTON — “Birdbrain” may not be much of an insult: Humans and songbirds share genetic changes affecting parts of the brain related to singing and speaking, new research shows. The finding may help scientists better understand how human language evolved, as well as unravel the causes of speech impairments. Neurobiologist Erich Jarvis of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., and colleagues discovered roughly 80 genes that turn on and off in similar ways in the brains of humans and songbirds such as zebra finches and parakeets. This gene activity, which occurs in brain regions involved in the ability to imitate sounds and to speak and sing, is not present in birds that can’t learn songs or mimic sounds. Jarvis described the work February 15 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Songbirds are good models for language because the birds are born not knowing the songs they will sing as adults. Like human infants learning a specific language, the birds have to observe and imitate others to pick up the tunes they croon. The ancestors of humans and songbirds split some 300 million years ago, suggesting the two groups independently acquired a similar capacity for song. With the new results and other recent research, Jarvis said, “I feel more comfortable that we can link structures in songbird brains to analogous structures in human brains due to convergent evolution.” © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2013

Keyword: Language; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 17818 - Posted: 02.18.2013

By JANE E. BRODY The title of a recent report on smoking and health might well have paraphrased the popular ad campaign for Virginia Slims, introduced in 1968 by Philip Morris and aimed at young professional women: “You’ve come a long way, baby.” Today that slogan should include: “…toward a shorter life.” Ten years shorter, in fact. The new report is one of two rather shocking analyses of the hazards of smoking and the benefits of quitting published last month in The New England Journal of Medicine. The data show that “women who smoke like men die like men who smoke,” Dr. Steven A. Schroeder, a professor of health and health care at the University of California, San Francisco, wrote in an accompanying editorial. That was not always the case. Half a century ago, the risk of death from lung cancer among men who smoked was five times higher than that among women smokers. But by the first decade of this century, that risk had equalized: for both men and women who smoked, the risk of death from lung cancer was 25 times greater than for nonsmokers, Dr. Michael J. Thun of the American Cancer Society and his colleagues reported. Today, women who smoke are even more likely than men who smoke to die of lung cancer. According to a second study in the same journal, women smokers face a 17.8 times greater risk of dying of lung cancer than women who do not smoke; men who smoke are at 14.6 times greater risk to die of lung cancer than men who don’t. Women who smoke now face a risk of death from lung cancer that is 50 percent higher than the estimates reported in the 1980s, according to Dr. Prabhat Jha of the Center for Global Health Research in Toronto and his colleagues. After controlling for age, body weight, education level and alcohol use, the new analysis found something else: men and women who continue to smoke die on average 10 years sooner than those who never smoked. Copyright 2013 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 17817 - Posted: 02.18.2013

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News BOSTON — Neuroscientists are following through on the promise of artificially enhanced bodies by creating the ability to "feel" flashes of light in invisible wavelengths, or building an entire virtual body that can be controlled via brain waves. "Things that we used to think were hoaxes or science fiction are fast becoming reality," said Todd Coleman, a bioengineering professor at the University of California at San Diego. Coleman and other researchers surveyed the rapidly developing field of neuroprosthetics in Boston this weekend at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. One advance came to light just in the past week, when researchers reported that they successfully wired up rats to sense infrared light and move toward the signals to get a reward. "This was the first attempt … not to restore a function but to augment the range of sensory experience," said Duke University neurobiologist Miguel Nicolelis, the research team's leader. The project, detailed in the journal Nature Communications, involved training rats to recognize a visible light source and poke at the source with its nose to get a sip of water. Then electrodes were implanted in a region of the rats' brains that is associated with whisker-touching. The electrodes were connected to an infrared sensor on the rats' heads, which stimulated the target neurons when the rat was facing the source of an infrared beam. Then the visible lights in the test cage were replaced by infrared lights. © 2013 NBCNews.com

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Robotics
Link ID: 17816 - Posted: 02.18.2013

Changing the channel on what TV children watch could improve their behaviour, but watching too much regular programming may have harmful long-term consequences, new research suggests. In Monday's issue of the journal Pediatrics, researchers reported that preschoolers spent less time watching violent programming when they were randomly assigned to participate in a program that encouraged aggression-filled shows to be replaced with educational or empathy-building viewing compared with a control group. Muppets Bert, left, and Ernie, from the children's program Sesame Street, were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves, which builds empathy. "We demonstrated that an intervention to modify the viewing habits of preschool-aged children can significantly enhance their overall social and emotional competence and that low-income boys may derive the greatest benefit," Dr. Dimitri Christakis of Seattle Children's Research Institute and his co-authors concluded. "Although television is frequently implicated as a cause of many problems in children, our research indicates that it may also be part of the solution." There was no difference in total viewing time between the 820 families involved in the study. The educational or "prosocial" programs included Sesame Street, Dora the Explorer and Super Why. A second category of shows also promoted co-operative problem-solving and non-violent conflict resolution but inconsistently, such as on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. © CBC 2013

Keyword: Aggression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 17815 - Posted: 02.18.2013

By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News, Boston Scientists are set to release the first batch of data from a project designed to create the first map of the human brain. The project could help shed light on why some people are naturally scientific, musical or artistic. Some of the first images were shown at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Boston. I found out how researchers are developing new brain imaging techniques for the project by having my own brain scanned. Scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital are pushing brain imaging to its limit using a purpose built scanner. It is one of the most powerful scanners in the world. The scanner's magnets need 22MW of electricity - enough to power a nuclear submarine. The researchers invited me to have my brain scanned. I was asked if I wanted "the 10-minute job or the 45-minute 'full monty'" which would give one of the most detailed scans of the brain ever carried out. Only 50 such scans have ever been done. I went for the full monty. It was a pleasant experience enclosed in the scanner's vast twin magnets. Powerful and rapidly changing magnetic fields were looking to see tiny particles of water travelling along the larger nerve fibres. By following the droplets, the scientists in the adjoining cubicle are able to trace the major connections within my brain. Arcs of understanding The result was a 3D computer image that revealed the important pathways of my brain in vivid colour. One of the lead researchers, Professor Van Wedeen, gave me a guided tour of the inside of my head. BBC © 2013

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 17814 - Posted: 02.18.2013

By JOHN MARKOFF The Obama administration is planning a decade-long scientific effort to examine the workings of the human brain and build a comprehensive map of its activity, seeking to do for the brain what the Human Genome Project did for genetics. The project, which the administration has been looking to unveil as early as March, will include federal agencies, private foundations and teams of neuroscientists and nanoscientists in a concerted effort to advance the knowledge of the brain’s billions of neurons and gain greater insights into perception, actions and, ultimately, consciousness. Scientists with the highest hopes for the project also see it as a way to develop the technology essential to understanding diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, as well as to find new therapies for a variety of mental illnesses. Moreover, the project holds the potential of paving the way for advances in artificial intelligence. The project, which could ultimately cost billions of dollars, is expected to be part of the president’s budget proposal next month. And, four scientists and representatives of research institutions said they had participated in planning for what is being called the Brain Activity Map project. The details are not final, and it is not clear how much federal money would be proposed or approved for the project in a time of fiscal constraint or how far the research would be able to get without significant federal financing. © 2013 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 17813 - Posted: 02.18.2013

By Jason Bittel Bears hibernate. They spend all year eating salmon, blueberries, and picnic baskets and then, sometime around baseball playoffs, they all wander off to a cave full of treasure and explorers’ skulls where they curl up in a big furry ball and snore away the winter. Everybody knows this! Even small children too young to attend to their own biological functions know how these wild animals make it through a period of harsh weather and food shortage. But beyond the fact that bears den up in winter, what do we really know of these lumbering slumber beasts and the secrets they keep beneath the ice and snow? Let’s start with this bit of housekeeping—cursory Googling of bears and hibernation will lead you to all sorts of trash talk saying bears aren’t “true hibernators.” True hibernators, such as Arctic ground squirrels, are capable of dropping their body temperatures below the freezing point of water, conditions so cold that neurons in the brain’s cortex are physically incapable of firing. Not to mention you can do all sorts of awful things to true hibernators while they slumber—like, oh, I don’t know, locking marmots in airtight jars filled with carbonic acid and hydrogen. (Easy, PETA. We’re talking 1832.) I know what you’re thinking: First Lance Armstrong, then Manti Te’o, and now this. But before you sit the kids down and blow their fragile little minds with the message that bears may not be true hibernators, consider that science is something of a moving target. The more we learn, the more questions we raise. © 2013 The Slate Group, LLC

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 17812 - Posted: 02.18.2013

by Emily Underwood BOSTON—Dude, check out these European perch. After swimming in water laced with a common antianxiety medication, the red-finned fish lose their inhibitions and gobble up prey at a much faster rate, according to a new study presented here today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (publisher of ScienceNOW). The animals act strangely even after being exposed to low concentrations of the medication found in rivers worldwide, suggesting that the drug and others like it could affect fish behavior and ecology even in small doses. Hundreds of different pharmaceuticals are able to slip past conventional wastewater treatment plants and into our waterways, says Jerker Fick, a toxicologist at Umeå University in Sweden and co-author of the new study. "They don't mysteriously go away after we excrete them." Scientists have known for a long time that many pharmaceuticals can persist in rivers and streams, and have behavioral effects on aquatic species in high doses, he says; however, determining whether more dilute concentrations have an effect is harder to establish. Several years ago, Fick and his colleagues discovered a common psychoactive medication called oxazepam in water samples from the River Fyris, which flows through Uppsala, the fourth largest city in Sweden. Oxazepam belongs to a class of drugs that make neurons less excitable and slower to transmit signals throughout the brain and is an "essential" treatment for panic attacks and other severe anxiety disorders, Fick says. Although the authors describe the concentration of the drug—0.58 micrograms per liter-1—as "unusually high," they also say it is comparable to levels found in rivers in other countries; however, there isn't enough research to know for sure how widespread the drug is. "This is not a particularly Swedish problem," says lead author Tomas Brodin of Umeå University. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Emotions; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 17811 - Posted: 02.16.2013

By Laura Sanders An element of surprise may be the key to whitewashing a painful memory. People who encountered something unexpected were better able to shake a troubling association, a new laboratory study finds. The results, published in the Feb. 15 Science, bring scientists closer to being able to weaken traumatic memories with help from a drug. Understanding how the brain forms and reforms traumatic memories might lead to treatments that would help people who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and other anxiety disorders. “The idea that an original memory could have the sting taken out of it — that’s been very appealing,” says psychiatrist Roger Pitman of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, who was not involved in the research. Memories are not written in neural stone. Recent results in animals and humans have shown that once called to mind, painful memories’ emotional edges can be blunted. Experiments have used certain drugs to weaken associations between a memory and a negative response. But the details of how and why those drugs work haven’t been clear. The new result may have uncovered a previously underappreciated step in that weakening process: In order for the emotional response tied to a memory to wither, something unexpected must happen while the person is recalling the memory. This mismatch between what a person expects and what actually happens — called a prediction error — puts a memory into a wobbly, vulnerable form that can be washed out, says study coauthor Merel Kindt of the University of Amsterdam. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2013

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Emotions
Link ID: 17810 - Posted: 02.16.2013

Mo Costandi Prions are best known as the infectious agents that cause ‘mad cow’ disease and the human versions of it, such as variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob Disease. But the proteins also have at least one known useful function, in the cells that insulate nerves, and are suspected to have more. Now researchers have provided the first direct evidence that the proteins play an important role in neurons themselves. The team reports in the Journal of Neuroscience1 that prions are involved in developmental plasticity, the process by which the structure and function of neurons in the growing brain is shaped by experience. Prions come in two main forms: the normal version and the misfolded, infectious version. The normal version, known as cellular prion protein (or PrPC), is present in every cell of the body and helps to maintain the myelin sheath in the cells that protect the nerves2. But the molecule is abundant in neurons themselves, especially during development. Because it is tethered to the membrane, it is widely assumed to be involved in signalling between nerve cells, but little direct evidence has been found for this. Neurobiologist Enrico Cherubini of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, and his colleagues therefore decided to look at the effects of electrical stimulation on slices of tissue from the hippocampus of healthy 3–7-day-old mice and of animals genetically engineered to lack the gene that encodes the prion protein. They used electrodes to stimulate individual cells at the same time as the networks of young neurons showed bursts of spontaneous electrical activity, or to simultaneously stimulate pairs of cells that are connected to each other. © 2013 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Prions; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 17809 - Posted: 02.16.2013

by Gisela Telis A stint in the dark may be just what the doctor ordered—at least if you have "lazy eye." Researchers report that kittens with the disorder, a visual impairment medically known as amblyopia that leads to poor sight or blindness in one eye, can completely recover their vision by simply spending 10 days in total darkness. "It's a remarkable study, with real potential to change how we think about recovery from amblyopia," says neuroscientist Frank Sengpiel of Cardiff University in the United Kingdom who was not involved in the work. Amblyopia affects about 4% of the human population. It's thought to start with an imbalance in vision early in life: If one eye doesn't see as well as the other—because, for example, of a cataract or astigmatism—the brain reroutes most of the connections needed for visual processing to the "good" eye. Doctors often treat the condition by patching the good eye and forcing the brain to rely on the other eye, but the treatment risks damaging vision in the good eye, and if it doesn't succeed or occur early enough in a child's visual development, the vision loss in the impaired eye can be permanent. Earlier studies with cats, whose complex visual systems are good stand-ins for human vision, showed that neurons in the brain's visual centers shrink when the brain decides to disconnect from the bad eye, but that they grow again when the cats are placed in darkness. So neuroscientists Kevin Duffy and Donald Mitchell of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, set out to test darkness itself as a treatment. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Vision; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 17808 - Posted: 02.16.2013