By SABRINA TAVERNISE PHILADELPHIA — After decades of rising childhood obesity rates, several American cities are reporting their first declines. The trend has emerged in big cities like New York and Los Angeles, as well as smaller places like Anchorage, Alaska, and Kearney, Neb. The state of Mississippi has also registered a drop, but only among white students. “It’s been nothing but bad news for 30 years, so the fact that we have any good news is a big story,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, the health commissioner in New York City, which reported a 5.5 percent decline in the number of obese schoolchildren from 2007 to 2011. The drops are small, just 5 percent here in Philadelphia and 3 percent in Los Angeles. But experts say they are significant because they offer the first indication that the obesity epidemic, one of the nation’s most intractable health problems, may actually be reversing course. The first dips — noted in a September report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — were so surprising that some researchers did not believe them. Deanna M. Hoelscher, a researcher at the University of Texas, who in 2010 recorded one of the earliest declines — among mostly poor Hispanic fourth graders in the El Paso area — did a double-take. “We reran the numbers a couple of times,” she said. “I kept saying, ‘Will you please check that again for me?’ ” © 2012 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 17595 - Posted: 12.11.2012

A drug that works through the same brain mechanism as the fast-acting antidepressant ketamine briefly improved treatment-resistant patients' depression symptoms in minutes, with minimal untoward side effects, in a clinical trial conducted by the National Institutes of Health. The experimental agent, called AZD6765, acts through the brain's glutamate chemical messenger system. Existing antidepressants available through prescription, which work through the brain’s serotonin system, take a few weeks to work, imperiling severely depressed patients, who can be at high risk for suicide. Ketamine also works in hours, but its usefulness is limited by its potential for dissociative side-effects, including hallucinations. It is being studied mostly for clues to how it works. "Our findings serve as a proof of concept that we can tap into an important component of the glutamate pathway to develop a new generation of safe, rapid-acting practical treatments for depression," said Carlos Zarate, M.D., of the NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health, which conducted the research. Zarate, and colleagues, reported on their results online Dec. 1, 2012 in the journal Biological Psychiatry. AZD6765, like ketamine, works by blocking glutamate binding to a protein on the surface of neurons, called the NMDA receptor. It is a less powerful blocker of the NMDA receptor, which may be a reason why it is better tolerated than ketamine.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 17594 - Posted: 12.11.2012

By BENEDICT CAREY They plotted a revolution, fell to debating among themselves, and in the end overturned very little except their own expectations. But the effort itself was a valuable guide for anyone who has received a psychiatric diagnosis, or anyone who might get one. This month, the American Psychiatric Association announced that its board of trustees had approved the fifth edition of the association’s influential diagnostic manual — the so-called bible of mental disorders — ending more than five years of sometimes acrimonious, and often very public, controversy. The committee of doctors appointed by the psychiatric association had attempted to execute a paradigm shift, changing how mental disorders are conceived and posting its proposals online for the public to comment. And comment it did: Patient advocacy groups sounded off, objecting to proposed changes in the definitions of depression and Asperger syndrome, among other diagnoses. Outside academic researchers did, too. A few committee members quit in protest. The final text, which won’t be fully available until publication this spring, has already gotten predictably mixed reviews. “Given the challenges in a field where objective lines are hard to draw, they did a solid job,” said Dr. Michael First, a psychiatrist at Columbia who edited a previous version of the manual and was a consultant on this one. Others disagreed. “This is the saddest moment in my 45-year career of practicing, studying and teaching psychiatry,” wrote Dr. Allen Frances, the chairman of a previous committee who has been one of the most vocal critics, in a blog post about the new manual, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM5. © 2012 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Autism
Link ID: 17593 - Posted: 12.11.2012

by Greg Miller A drug used for decades to treat high blood pressure and other conditions has shown promise in a small clinical trial for autism. The drug, bumetanide, reduced the overall severity of behavioral symptoms after 3 months of daily treatment. The researchers say that many parents of children who received the drug reported that their children were more "present" and engaged in social interactions after taking it. The new findings are among several recent signs that treatments to address the social deficits at the core of autism may be on the horizon. Several lines of evidence suggest that autism interferes with the neurotransmitter GABA, which typically puts a damper on neural activity. Bumetanide may enhance the inhibitory effects of GABA, and the drug has been used safely as a diuretic to treat a wide range of heart, lung, and kidney conditions. In the new study, researchers led by Yehezkel Ben-Ari at the Mediterranean Institute of Neurobiology in Marseille, France, recruited 60 autistic children between the ages of 3 and 11 and randomly assigned them to receive either a daily pill of bumetanide or a placebo. (Neither the children's parents nor the researchers who assessed the children knew who received the actual drug.) As a group, those who got bumetanide improved by 5.6 points on a 60-point scale that's often used to assess behaviors related to autism, the researchers report today in Translational Psychiatry. That was enough to nudge the group average just under the cutoff for severe autism and into the mild to medium category. The study did not look directly at whether the drug improved all symptoms equally or some more than others. "We have some indications that the symptoms particularly ameliorated with bumetanide are the genuine core symptoms of autism, namely communication and social interactions," Ben-Ari says. More work will be needed to verify that impression. Ben-Ari says his team is now preparing for a larger, multicenter trial in Europe. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 17592 - Posted: 12.11.2012

by Christian Jarrett, Ph.D in Brain Myths Back in the 1990s neuroscientists at the University of Parma identified cells in the premotor cortex of monkeys that had an unusual response pattern. They were activated when the monkeys performed a given action and, mirror-like, when they saw another individual perform that same movement. Since then, the precise function and influence of these neurons has become perhaps the most hyped topic in neuroscience. In 2000, Vilayanur Ramachandran, the charismatic neuroscientist, made a bold prediction: “mirror neurons will do for psychology what DNA did for biology.” He's at the forefront of a frenzy of excitement that has followed these cells ever since their discovery. For many, they have came to represent all that makes us human. Perhaps, in those early heady years, Ramachandran was just getting a little carried away? Not at all. For his 2011 book, The Tell-Tale Brain, Ramachandran took his claims further. In the chapter “The neurons that shaped civilisation”, he argues that mirror neurons underlie empathy, allow us to imitate other people, that they accelerated the evolution of the brain, that they help explain the origin of language, and most impressively of all, that they prompted the great leap forward in human culture that happened about 60,000 years ago. “We could say mirror neurons served the same role in early hominin evolution as the Internet, Wikipedia, and blogging do today,” he concludes. “Once the cascade was set in motion, there was no turning back from the path to humanity.” © Copyright 2002-2012 Sussex Directories, Inc

Keyword: Vision; Attention
Link ID: 17591 - Posted: 12.11.2012

By Scicurious I would like to start this post with a challenge. Can you get through this entire post WITHOUT feeling itchy? I know I couldn’t even write the first line. And I’m not alone. Itch is contagious. Watching someone else scratch can make you itch, and you should try to get through a lecture on a skin condition. I wonder how dermatologists can take it. What IS an itch? The clinical definition is that it’s an “unpleasant sensation associated with the urge to scratch”. Ok, then. Itching is a very important part of clinical diagnosis, from things like poison ivy to allergies to severe use of methamphetamine. In addition, there is a psychological disorder of severe itch which can be both disfiguring and incredibly distressing. But where does it come from and why do we itch? There’s an obvious evolutionary reason (OMG a spider on my arm getitoffgetitoffgetitioff!!!!), but what about social itch? We know about the neurobiological “itch matrix”, which involves areas of the brain associated with touch and somatosensory processing, the premotor areas (for scratching), the anterior insula, prefrontal cortex, thalamus, and cerebellum. From a combination of all of these areas (accompanied, of course, by other things like the visual areas to process seeing the spider on your hand), you get an itch and a scartching response, and other involved areas (like the insula and cingulate) may help make it unpleasant enough for you to want to deal with it. All of these areas are also associated with the processing of other stimuli, like touch and pain, which may contribute to the sensation of itch. © 2012 Scientific American,

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Attention
Link ID: 17590 - Posted: 12.11.2012

By WILLIAM J. BROAD When a hurricane forced the Nautilus to dive in Jules Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” Captain Nemo took the submarine down to a depth of 25 fathoms, or 150 feet. There, to the amazement of the novel’s protagonist, Prof. Pierre Aronnax, no whisper of the howling turmoil could be heard. “What quiet, what silence, what peace!” he exclaimed. That was 1870. Today — to the dismay of whale lovers and friends of marine mammals, if not divers and submarine captains — the ocean depths have become a noisy place. The causes are human: the sonar blasts of military exercises, the booms from air guns used in oil and gas exploration, and the whine from fleets of commercial ships that relentlessly crisscross the global seas. Nature has its own undersea noises. But the new ones are loud and ubiquitous. Marine experts say the rising clamor is particularly dangerous to whales, which depend on their acute hearing to locate food and one another. To fight the din, the federal government is completing the first phase of what could become one of the world’s largest efforts to curb the noise pollution and return the sprawling ecosystem to a quieter state. The project, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, seeks to document human-made noises in the ocean and transform the results into the world’s first large sound maps. The ocean visualizations use bright colors to symbolize the sounds radiating out through the oceanic depths, frequently over distances of hundreds of miles. © 2012 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 17589 - Posted: 12.11.2012

Monya Baker Some of the waste that humans flush away every day could become a powerful source of brain cells to study disease, and may even one day be used in therapies for neurodegenerative diseases. Scientists have found a relatively straightforward way to persuade the cells discarded in human urine to turn into valuable neurons. The technique, described online in a study in Nature Methods this week1, does not involve embryonic stem cells. These come with serious drawbacks when transplanted, such as the risk of developing tumours. Instead, the method uses ordinary cells present in urine, and transforms them into neural progenitor cells — the precursors of brain cells. These precursor cells could help researchers to produce cells tailored to individuals more quickly and from more patients than current methods. Researchers routinely reprogram cultured skin and blood cells2 into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which can go on to form any cell in the body. But urine is a much more accessible source. Stem-cell biologist Duanqing Pei and his colleagues at China's Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, had previously shown that kidney epithelial cells in urine could be reprogrammed into iPS cells. However, in that study the team used retroviruses to insert pluripotency genes into cells — a common technique in cell reprogramming. This alters the genetic make-up of cells and can make them less predictable, so in this study, Pei and his colleagues introduced the genes using vectors which did not integrate in the cellular genome. © 2012 Nature Publishing Group,

Keyword: Stem Cells
Link ID: 17588 - Posted: 12.10.2012

By Anna-Marie Lever Health reporter, BBC News Smoking may worsen a hangover after drinking heavily, a US study reports, although the reason why is unclear. Researchers asked 113 US students to keep a diary for eight weeks, recording their drinking and smoking habits and any hangover symptoms. When they drank heavily - around six cans of beer an hour - those who also smoked suffered a worse hangover. Addiction charities hope this study may motivate smokers to cut down over the festive season. The study's findings are reported in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. One of the paper's authors, Dr Damaris Rohsenow, from the Centre for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University said: "At the same number of drinks, people who smoke more that day are more likely to have a hangover and have more intense hangovers. "And smoking itself was linked to an increased risk of hangover compared with not smoking at all. That raises the likelihood that there is some direct effect of tobacco smoking on hangovers." A spokesperson from the charity Action on Addiction called for further research, saying the interaction between alcohol and smoking "is complex". "We welcome evidence-based research in any areas which can be used assist with developing preventative campaigns, particularly for young people who are often experimenting in their teenage years with alcohol, drugs and cigarettes. BBC © 2012

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 17587 - Posted: 12.10.2012

By Joss Fong What do an orgasm, a multiplication problem and a photo of a dead body have in common? Each induces a slight, irrepressible expansion of the pupils in our eyes. For more than a century scientists have known that our eyes' pupils respond to more than changes in light. They also betray mental and emotional commotion. In fact, pupil dilation correlates with arousal so consistently that researchers use pupil size, or pupillometry, to investigate a wide range of psychological phenomena. And they do this without knowing exactly why our eyes behave this way. "Nobody really knows for sure what these changes do," says Stuart Steinhauer, director of the Biometrics Research Lab at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He views the dilations as a by-product of the nervous system processing important information. The visual cortex in the back of the brain assembles the actual images we see. But a different, older part of the nervous system—the autonomic—manages the continuous tuning of pupil size (along with other involuntary functions such as heart rate and perspiration). Specifically, it dictates the movement of the iris to regulate the amount of light that enters the eye, similar to a camera aperture. The iris is made of two types of muscle: a ring of sphincter muscles that encircle and constrict the pupil down to a couple of millimeters across to prevent too much light from entering; and a set of dilator muscles laid out like bicycle spokes that can expand the pupil up to eight millimeters—approximately the diameter of a chickpea—in low light. © 2012 Scientific American

Keyword: Emotions; Attention
Link ID: 17586 - Posted: 12.10.2012

By Laura Sanders A new therapy busts up deposits of sticky plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease in the brains of mice. Further tests with the experimental drug could help settle the question of how important the plaques are to the disease, and might even lead to a treatment for its most advanced stages. The study, described in the Dec. 6 Neuron, tested an antibody called mE8 in the brains of older mice that had been genetically altered to accumulate amyloid-beta, a protein that forms plaques in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s. “We removed 50 percent of the plaque,” says study coauthor Ronald DeMattos of Eli Lilly and Co. in Indianapolis. “This is a big deal.” The scientists haven’t yet looked for any behavioral improvements in the mice. Nor is it clear that the drug would work the same way in people. But DeMattos and his Lilly colleagues are hopeful that the therapy will lead to new treatments for patients in later stages of Alzheimer’s, who carry large amounts of plaque in their brains. Other researchers say that busting plaques may be the wrong approach to slowing or stopping the dementia that plagues Alzheimer’s patients. Another antibody recently failed to change the course of Alzheimer’s disease in two large clinical trials. Although the drug developers haven’t yet released the full details of those trials, that antibody — called bapineuzumab — appears to reduce levels of A-beta and shrink plaques. But with no improvement in symptoms, the trial results, reported in August, are a setback on the path to new Alzheimer’s drugs. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2012

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 17585 - Posted: 12.08.2012

Amy Maxmen When Bob Marley sang, “I am redder than red,” he probably did not imagine that chemists would one day capture this imagined hue. But researchers have taken a step in that direction, by tweaking a colour-sensing pigment from the human eye to absorb reds of longer wavelengths than those that we can see. “We didn’t expect to get redder than red,” says Babak Borhan, a chemist at Michigan State University in East Lansing, who led the study published today in Science1. The researchers’ red was the product of experiments conducted to understand exactly how colour-sensing pigments in our eyes absorb different hues. The team targeted rhodopsin, a pigment found in the photoreceptor cells of the retina. A rhodopsin molecule is made of proteins called opsins and a chromophore — the part of the molecule responsible for absorbing different wavelengths of light . Together, the two parts translate light into signals for various colours, which are then interpreted by the brain. In the eye, a chromophore called retinal responds to wavelengths ranging from red, at about 560 nanometres, to blue, at about 420 nm. “The question has been: how can we see all of these colours using essentially one molecule, the chromophore?” Borhan says. The attached proteins somehow control the range of light that a chromophore can absorb — from red, to green, to blue; but no one knew exactly how they fine-tuned this absorption ability. Scientists have hypothesized that the shade the chromophore can receive shifts as a result of more than one interaction, such as a change in the shape of the chromophore–protein complex and a change in the positions of electrical charges along the protein molecule. © 2012 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 17584 - Posted: 12.08.2012

by Debora Mackenzie The Toxoplasma parasite is an unusually devious operator. When it infects mice, it alters their behaviour so they become fearless enough to seek out cats and get eaten. But exactly how it did this was a mystery. Now it appears that the parasite hijacks its victim's immune system, causing it to produce a chemical normally found in the brain. The discovery suggests that the brain and immune system might have evolved using similar processes to control their behaviour, including electrical and chemical signals now known mainly in nerves. Toxoplasma gondii spends part of its life in a cat's gut, then spreads to mice via cat droppings. It invades their brains and causes them to behave fearlessly towards cats – quickly returning the parasite to a cat's gut and completing its life cycle. The parasite can use other animals as a host, and can spread to humans via infected, uncooked meat as well as cat droppings. Acute infection can harm a fetus, so pregnant women are told to avoid cat litter boxes. A quarter of people have a lifelong Toxoplasma infection and may suffer psychological effects, including increased recklessness. Antonio Barragan of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, has now discovered that the parasite's mind-bending abilities could be a side effect of the way it hijacks the immune system. Invaders like Toxoplasma normally get engulfed by white blood cells called dendritic cells (DCs), a process that helps other immune cells learn to recognise them. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Emotions; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 17583 - Posted: 12.08.2012

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) can reduce symptoms of depression in people who fail to respond to drug treatment, says a study in the Lancet. CBT, a type of psychotherapy, was found to benefit nearly half of the 234 patients who received it combined with normal care from their GP. Up to two-thirds of people with depression do not respond to anti-depressants. Patients should have access to a range of treatments, the charity Mind said. CBT is a form of talking psychotherapy to help people with depression change the way they think to improve how they feel and alter their behaviour. The study followed 469 patients with treatment-resistant depression picked from GP practices in Bristol, Exeter and Glasgow over 12 months. One group of patients continued with their usual care from their GP, which could include anti-depressant medication, while the second group was also treated with CBT. After six months, researchers found 46% of those who had received CBT reported at least a 50% reduction in their symptoms. This compared with 22% experiencing the same reduction in the other group. The study concluded CBT was effective in reducing symptoms and improving patients' quality of life. The improvements had been maintained for a period of 12 months, it added. BBC © 2012

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 17582 - Posted: 12.08.2012

Naomi Piercey, Women's Health A throbbing headache isn't the only side effect of overloading on alcohol. Chug too many cocktails and you may be putting your actual gray matter at risk. According to a new study from Rutgers University, consumption of alcohol, from moderate-level drinking to binge drinking (drinking less during the week and more on the weekends), can decrease the creation of adult brain cells by as much as 40 percent. In this study researchers examined the brain cell development of rodents after consuming alcohol. When the blood alcohol level of the rats reached 0.08 percent--the legal driving limit--researchers found the number of nerve cells in the hippocampus of the brain were reduced by nearly 40 percent compared to those in the sober group. The hippocampus--where new neurons are made--is a section of the brain associated with long-term memory and some new types of learning. This stage of intoxication is equivalent to approximately 3-4 drinks for women and five drinks for men. "The purpose of the study was to underscore the long term effects of alcohol exposure," says Tracey J. Shors, PhD, professor of behavioral and systems neuroscience in the department of psychology at Rutgers University, who helped conduct the study. "It may not be detrimental to have one or two days of alcohol exposure, but week after week, you will have many fewer neurons in your brain," she said. © 2012 NBCNews.com

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Neurogenesis
Link ID: 17581 - Posted: 12.08.2012

by Julia Brown Forget dieting; just cut down a little on the fat in what you eat and you'll lose weight. The confirmation that you can lose weight without eating less comes from a review of studies involving nearly 75,000 people – none of whom were trying to lose weight. The pounds fell off when they changed to a diet containing less fat. The work was commissioned by the World Health Organization to find out what our optimal intake of fat should be. Lee Hooper at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, and her colleagues reviewed 43 studies carried out in developed countries in which volunteers reduced the overall fat content of their diet, compared with controls who ate either their usual diet or a more healthy one. In all studies, volunteers had to maintain their eating plan for at least six months, with the median time about six years. The studies varied in how volunteers reduced their fat intake and by how much. For example, in one, volunteers simply replaced normal food with low-fat equivalents. In others, participants could change their diet in various ways to reduce their daily fat intake by about 7 per cent on average. In all but one study, the low-fat groups saw a greater weight reduction than the controls, with people losing on average about 1.6 kilograms. "I've never seen quite such a consistent set of results," Hooper says. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 17580 - Posted: 12.08.2012

By Robert Martone The link between a mother and child is profound, and new research suggests a physical connection even deeper than anyone thought. The profound psychological and physical bonds shared by the mother and her child begin during gestation when the mother is everything for the developing fetus, supplying warmth and sustenance, while her heartbeat provides a soothing constant rhythm. The physical connection between mother and fetus is provided by the placenta, an organ, built of cells from both the mother and fetus, which serves as a conduit for the exchange of nutrients, gasses, and wastes. Cells may migrate through the placenta between the mother and the fetus, taking up residence in many organs of the body including the lung, thyroid muscle, liver, heart, kidney and skin. These may have a broad range of impacts, from tissue repair and cancer prevention to sparking immune disorders. It is remarkable that it is so common for cells from one individual to integrate into the tissues of another distinct person. We are accustomed to thinking of ourselves as singular autonomous individuals, and these foreign cells seem to belie that notion, and suggest that most people carry remnants of other individuals. As remarkable as this may be, stunning results from a new study show that cells from other individuals are also found in the brain. In this study, male cells were found in the brains of women and had been living there, in some cases, for several decades. What impact they may have had is now only a guess, but this study revealed that these cells were less common in the brains of women who had Alzheimer’s disease, suggesting they may be related to the health of the brain. © 2012 Scientific American

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 17579 - Posted: 12.05.2012

by Virginia Morell Hide some gold coins in your backyard, and you'll probably check around to make sure no one is spying on where you stash them. Eurasian jays are no different. A new study finds that the pinkish-gray birds with striking blue wing patches are not only aware that others may be watching while they stash their nuts and seeds for the winter, but also might be surreptitiously listening, too. In response, they change their behaviors—stashing nuts in quieter places, for example. The findings suggest that the jays may be able to understand another's point of view, an ability rarely seen in animals other than humans. Several species of jays and crows, collectively called corvids, cache food to eat later. They also spy on one another and steal from each other's caches. The behaviors have led to what researchers term an evolutionary arms race, with the birds evolving various strategies to outwit their rivals, such as hiding nuts in the shade or behind barriers, or moving their cache to new locations. In the wild, Eurasian jays are often robbed by other species of birds such as Jackdaws and crows, as well as by their own mates. "They're also very good vocal mimics, imitating the calls of raptors and songbirds in the wild, and our voices in the lab. And that means that auditory information is a big part of their cognitive repertoire," says Rachael Shaw, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, who led the new study while a graduate student in comparative psychologist Nicola Clayton's lab at Cambridge. But do the birds, which are also very secretive, understand that the scratching and rustling sounds they make while caching their nuts in the ground might draw the attention of another bird? Other researchers working with Clayton had previously shown that Western scrub jays from North America would avoid hiding nuts in noisy gravel if a rival was nearby and could hear them. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 17578 - Posted: 12.05.2012

By Ferris Jabr The computer, smartphone or other electronic device on which you may be reading this article, tracking the weather or checking your e-mail has a kind of rudimentary brain. It has highly organized electrical circuits that store information and behave in specific, predictable ways, just like the interconnected cells in your brain. On the most fundamental level, electrical circuits and neurons are made of the same stuff—atoms and their constituent elementary particles—but whereas the human brain is conscious of itself, man-made gadgets do not know they exist. Consciousness, most scientists would argue, is not a shared property of all matter in the universe. Rather consciousness is restricted to a subset of animals with relatively complex brains. The more scientists study animal behavior and brain anatomy, however, the more universal consciousness seems to be. A brain as complex as a human's is definitely not necessary for consciousness. On July 7 of this year, a group of neuroscientists convening at the University of Cambridge signed a document entitled “The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness in Non-Human Animals,” officially declaring that nonhuman animals, “including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses,” are conscious. Humans are more than just conscious; they are also self-aware. Scientists differ on how they distinguish between consciousness and self-awareness, but here is one common distinction: consciousness is awareness of your body and your environment; self-awareness is recognition of that consciousness—not only understanding that you exist but further comprehending that you are aware of your existence. Another way of considering it: to be conscious is to think; to be self-aware is to realize that you are a thinking being and to think about your thoughts. Presumably human infants are conscious—they perceive and respond to people and things around them—but they are not yet self-aware. In their first years of life, children develop a sense of self, learning to recognize themselves in the mirror and to distinguish between their own point of view and the perspectives of other people. © 2012 Scientific American,

Keyword: Consciousness; Robotics
Link ID: 17577 - Posted: 12.05.2012

by Elizabeth Norton Despite long experience with the ways of the world, older people are especially vulnerable to fraud. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), up to 80% of scam victims are over 65. One explanation may lie in a brain region that serves as a built-in crook detector. Called the anterior insula, this structure—which fires up in response to the face of an unsavory character—is less active in older people, possibly making them less cagey than younger folks, a new study finds. Both FTC and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have found that older people are easy marks due in part to their tendency to accentuate the positive. According to social neuroscientist Shelley Taylor of the University of California, Los Angeles, research backs up the idea that older people can put a positive spin on things—emotionally charged pictures, for example, and playing virtual games in which they risk the loss of money. "Older people are good at regulating their emotions, seeing things in a positive light, and not overreacting to everyday problems," she says. But this trait may make them less wary. To see if older people really are less able to spot a shyster, Taylor and colleagues showed photos of faces considered trustworthy, neutral, or untrustworthy to a group of 119 older adults (ages 55 to 84) and 24 younger adults (ages 20 to 42). Signs of untrustworthiness include averted eyes; an insincere smile that doesn't reach the eyes; a smug, smirky mouth; and a backward tilt to the head. The participants were asked to rate each face on a scale from -3 (very untrustworthy) to 3 (very trustworthy). © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Attention; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 17576 - Posted: 12.04.2012