Elizabeth Lopatto , Bloomberg News Three studies set to explore the use of experimental drugs that may become the first to change the course of Alzheimer's disease aren't looking to cure the illness. Their goal is to prevent it altogether. The independent trials will begin in 2013 and run for three to five years, testing as many as five drugs in almost 1,500 volunteers who haven't shown any of Alzheimer's mind-altering symptoms, yet carry a strong genetic risk for the disease or display early physical evidence in the brain. A decision on the final study drug is expected in December. The newest strategy abandons a drive that failed to stop Alzheimer's once memories recede. Instead, as with heart disease, scientists are exploring if the mind-robbing ailment can be prevented or at least delayed using drugs that act roughly like Pfizer's Lipitor and other statins. The idea, driven by new information that tracks the disease's progression back through time, is to act years before symptoms occur to rid the brain of proteins that can later destroy nerve cells. "We now can see changes 10 to 15 years before symptoms develop," said Neil Buckholtz, director of the division of neuroscience at the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, Maryland. "If you can stop them, you have a chance of slowing down or possibly even stopping progression." A breakthrough can't come soon enough. The number of Alzheimer's cases globally is expected to double within 20 years as the world's population ages, to as many as 65.7 million people in 2030 and 115 million by 2050, the Geneva- based World Health Organization said in April. © independent.co.uk

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 17394 - Posted: 10.20.2012

By Laura Sanders NEW ORLEANS — Fearful associations can be knocked back during sleep, research in mice shows. After receiving an injection of a drug, a nasty link between a scent and a painful foot shock faded as the mice slumbered. The results are preliminary but may ultimately show how to get around a roadblock in treatments for people with post-traumatic stress disorder: Traumatic associations can be weakened in a doctor’s office, but those memories can flood back when triggered by specific events in everyday life. The new finding suggests that the hazy world of sleep, lacking any particular real-world context, might be a better place to diminish such memories. Neuroscientist Asya Rolls of Stanford University and colleagues taught mice that when they smelled jasmine, a foot shock was not far behind. A day later, as the mice slept, the researchers wafted the smell over the animals, strengthening and solidifying the scary link between jasmine and pain. A day after that, the mice froze in fear when they caught a whiff of jasmine, even though the animals were in an entirely new room unassociated with the original shock. But Rolls and her team could interrupt this sleep-strengthening process with the antibiotic anisomycin, injected into the amygdala—a brain structure involved in memory storage. Before the mice were exposed to jasmine during sleep, the researchers injected some of them with the drug. The next day, these mice didn’t freeze as much as the mice that didn’t get the drug. The results suggest that during sleep, traumatic memories, such as the kind that plague people with PTSD, can be effectively weakened. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2012

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Emotions
Link ID: 17393 - Posted: 10.20.2012

By Dan Cossins There’s a new suspect in the search for the causes of Parkinson’s disease—deformities in the nuclear membrane of neural stem cells. Scientists observed the same defects, caused by a single gene mutation, in brain tissue samples from deceased Parkinson’s patients, suggesting that nuclear deterioration—and the mutation that drives it—could play a role in the pathology of the disease. The study, published today (October 17) in Nature, also shows that correcting the mutation reverses this phenotype, pointing to new ways to treat this cause of neurodegeneration. “I don’t recall anyone ever suggesting this as a major phenotype [for Parkinson’s], so that’s really quite a big new direction for the field,” said Mark Cookson, a neuroscientist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, who did not participate in the study. Parkinson’s disease has traditionally been attributed to a loss of dopamine-generating neurons, which leads to the degenerative muscle control that is characteristic of the disease. But Parkinson’s also causes many other sensory problems, which cannot be explained by a dopaminergic mechanism. Over the past 5 years, several groups have shown that disruption of the structure of the nuclear envelope—the lipid bilayer that separates nucleus from cytoplasm—is correlated with aging and certain age-related pathologies in the human brain, though the precise role of nuclear defects in the diseases remained unclear. Meanwhile, since 2004 scientists including Cookson have demonstrated that a mutation in the luceine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) gene is correlated with Parkinson’s. However, the molecular and cellular mechanisms by which the LRRK2 mutation might drive disease progression remained a mystery. © 1986-2012 The Scientist

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 17392 - Posted: 10.20.2012

By Laura Sanders When sociologist Mike Tomlinson began combing through the health records of people in Northern Ireland, he wasn’t interested in suicide. He was on the hunt for links between poverty and international conflict. But he came across a startling trend. From 1998 to 2008, the rate at which men in their mid-30s to mid-50s were committing suicide rose alarmingly fast, more quickly than the rate for the rest of Northern Ireland’s population. At first, that spike made no sense. A peace agreement reached in 1998 transformed Northern Ireland into a prosperous and tranquil place. Economic indicators had been surprisingly good. Suicide rates in neighboring countries were all gently falling. Nothing seemed to explain why so many of these men were killing themselves. But Tomlinson found a hint in the men’s pasts. They had all grown up in the late 1960s and the 1970s, during some of the worst violence Northern Ireland had ever experienced. Called the Troubles, this warlike period brought religious and political fighting that pitted neighbor against neighbor. Children of the Troubles lived with terrorism, house-to-house searches, curfews and bomb explosions. Trauma early in life had rendered men more vulnerable to taking their own lives later, Tomlinson proposed in July in International Sociology. “If you were younger then, you carry that through,” says Tomlinson, of Queen’s University Belfast. This idea, that something that happened long ago could have such a profound effect today, seemed to resonate with others. When he described his idea to a suicide prevention group in Northern Ireland, “they just lit on it, and said it speaks so much to what they were seeing.” © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2012

Keyword: Epigenetics; Stress
Link ID: 17391 - Posted: 10.20.2012

By Marcia Malory Ask this question, and you will probably receive one of two responses: Yes. People choose to be gay. They are making an immoral choice, which government should discourage. Or No. Sexual preference is biologically determined. Government should protect gay people from discrimination because homosexuality is an unalterable aspect of their identity. These two answers have something in common: With both of them, the science conveniently supports the moral decision. What if neither answer is right? Perhaps sexual preference can be changed – and people have the right to engage in gay sex and have homosexual relationships if they choose to do so. (The fourth option, that gay people have no choice but to be gay, but should be punished for it anyway, is morally unthinkable.) What does science tell us about sexual preference? We know, from many twin and adoption studies, that sexual preference has a genetic component. A gay man is more likely than a straight man to have a (biological) gay brother; lesbians are more likely than straight women to have gay sisters. In 1993, a study published in the journal Science showed that families with two homosexual brothers were very likely to have certain genetic markers on a region of the X chromosome known as Xq28. This led to media headlines about the possibility of the existence of a “gay gene” and discussions about the ethics of aborting a “gay” fetus. © 2012 Scientific American,

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 17390 - Posted: 10.20.2012

By Tina Hesman Saey New work suggests that a hormone that makes the body think it’s starving could prolong life about as long as severely cutting calories does but without the denial. A hormone called fibroblast growth factor-21, or FGF21, lengthened the lives of mice that had been genetically engineered to constantly produce large amounts of the protein, researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas report online October 15 in eLife. The hormone is normally made by the liver during fasting and may tap into some of the same life-extending biochemical processes as does caloric restriction, a proven longevity booster. Caloric restriction — usually defined as cutting calorie intake to 75 to 80 percent of the amount needed to maintain normal body weight, while still maintaining good nutrition — has been shown lengthen life in a wide variety of species, such as fruit flies and dogs. Minimal calorie consumption turns on many different biological processes that slow aging, says Cynthia Kenyon, a developmental biologist at the University of California, San Francisco. The hormone in the study somehow interferes with a chain reaction anchored by insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), a process that is also shut down by caloric restriction and thought to be responsible for many of its life-extending effects. In the study, researchers led by UT Southwestern’s David Mangelsdorf and Steven Kliewer genetically engineered mice to constantly make five to 10 times as much FGF21 as normal. These engineered mice lived 30 to 40 percent longer than normal mice on a standard diet. Female mice benefitted from the hormone even more than males; about a third of the FGF21-producing female mice still were alive at 44 months old. Average survival for normal mice in the study was about 28 months. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2012

Keyword: Obesity; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 17389 - Posted: 10.20.2012

By David DiSalvo Neuroscientists aren’t usually thought of as advocates for special interests. They’re a generally objective bunch, dedicated to their discipline and concerned above all with making solid contributions to understanding how our brains work. Advances in understanding and treating Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, and a host of other diseases and conditions are largely attributable to the commitment of neuroscientists focused on solving some of the most difficult problems in medicine. But, over the past decade, as neuroscience—and brain imaging in particular—has become a star science attraction, the role of the impartial neuroscientist has been redefined. When the forces of marketing realized that neuroscience could assist in predicting consumer behavior, neuroscientists became a hot commodity as “consultants” to some of the biggest brands on the planet. Soon “neuromarketing” was born, and firms armed with fMRI machines started becoming mainstays at consumer focus groups for Fortune 500 companies. A similar story is playing out in the legal arena—but the stakes are much higher. When neuroscientists are recruited to weigh in on critical issues like lie detection and the alleged mental state of a defendant, people’s lives, and not just their wallets, are directly affected. But much of this technology is too new to be reliable. Furthermore, neuroscience experts aren’t just being used on the stand—they are also being paid to help select, even sway, juries, and that poses an entirely new ethical dilemma. © 2012 The Slate Group, LLC

Keyword: Brain imaging; Stress
Link ID: 17388 - Posted: 10.20.2012

By Nick Triggle Health correspondent, BBC News Obesity surgery is often seen as a quick fix, without proper consideration of the risks, a review says. The National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death looked at the care given to more than 300 patients at NHS and private hospitals in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It found that many were given insufficient time or information to properly consent to the operations. Post-surgery care was also found to be lacking, the watchdog said. In particular, it highlighted the fact patients were not always given access to dieticians and psychologists. The report also suggested the failings could be contributing to the high number of readmissions - nearly a fifth of the patients had to return within six months. Weight loss operations, such as the fitting of gastric bands, have been growing in popularity. There were more than 8,000 of these operations, sometimes called bariatric surgery, carried out by the NHS last year - and the number is rising by about 10% a year. BBC © 2012

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 17387 - Posted: 10.18.2012

By Cari Nierenberg The strange folds and furrows covering a Brazilian man's entire scalp was neither a funky new look nor a hipster trend. Rather the 21-year-old's bizarre looking scalp with its deep skin folds in a pattern said to resemble the surface of the brain is a sign of a rare medical condition known as cutis verticis gyrata. In this week's New England Journal of Medicine, two Brazilian doctors describe this young man's case and share a picture of its odd appearance. When he was 19, the skin on his scalp started to change. It grew thicker, forming many soft, spongy ridges and narrow ruts. Even his hair had an unusual configuration. It was normal in the furrows but sparser over the folds as is common for this strange scalp condition. No doubt, visits to the barber shop as well as washing his squishy scalp and combing his hair were peculiar experiences. Despite the extent of his scalp affected, "the patient did not have the habit of covering his head," with a hat, for instance, says Dr. Karen Schons a dermatologist at the Hospital Universitario de Santa Maria, who examined the patient and co-authored the case study. In fact, the case study reports that "the condition did not bother him cosmetically." © 2012 NBCNews.com

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 17386 - Posted: 10.18.2012

by Helen Thomson, New Orleans HUMANS are constantly searching for an elixir of youth - could it be that an infusion of young blood holds the key? This seems to be true for mice, at least. According to research presented this week at the Society for Neuroscience conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, giving young blood to old mice can reverse some of the effects of age-related cognitive decline. Last year, Saul Villeda, then at Stanford University in California, and colleagues showed they could boost the growth of new cells in the brains of old mice by giving them a blood infusion from young mice (Nature, doi.org/c9jwvm). "We know that blood has this huge effect on brain cells, but we didn't know if its effects extended beyond cell regeneration," he says. Now the team has tested for changes in cognition by linking the circulatory systems of young and old mice. Once the blood of each conjoined mouse had fully mixed with the other, the researchers analysed their brains. Tissue from the hippocampus of old mice given young blood showed changes in the expression of 200 to 300 genes, particularly in those involved in synaptic plasticity, which underpins learning and memory. They also found changes in some proteins involved in nerve growth. The infusion of young blood also boosted the number and strength of neuronal connections in an area of the brain where new cells do not grow. This didn't happen when old mice received old blood. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 17385 - Posted: 10.18.2012

Nearly a quarter of seniors said they'd like to participate in more social activities, according to a new report by Statistics Canada. The agency released the first nationally representative study on barriers to social participation by seniors on Wednesday. "Social engagement — involvement in meaningful activities and maintaining close relationships — is a component of successful aging," wrote Heather Gilmour of Statistics Canada's health analysis division. "The results of this analysis highlight the importance of frequent social participation to maintaining quality of life." Overall, an estimated 80 per cent said they were frequent participants in at least one social activity, such as seeing relatives or friends outside the household, attending church or religious activities like a choir or sports at least weekly or attending concerts or volunteering at least monthly. "The greater the number of frequent social activities, the higher the odds of positive self-perceived health, and the lower the odds of loneliness and life dissatisfaction," Gilmour said. "This is consistent with research that has found seniors with a wider range of social ties have better well-being." © CBC 2012

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Alzheimers
Link ID: 17384 - Posted: 10.18.2012

by Sara Reardon, New Orleans, Louisiana Does beer make you shlur your wordsh? You're not alone: drunk zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) sing songs that are blurrier and more disordered than those of their sober counterparts. What's more, binge drinking may permanently impair juvenile finches' ability to learn new songs – which could have implications for our understanding of the effect of heavy drinking on adolescents. Having a unique and interesting song is important for zebra finches to mate, and each male develops his own signature tune as he matures, says Christopher Olson of Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. Because zebra finch song is so well studied, Olson and colleagues decided to find out how alcohol would affect it. First, they had to find out whether finches are even interested in alcohol. When they gave a group of adult finches 6 per cent ethanol in their water bottles, the birds drank enough of it that their blood alcohol content sometimes reached 0.8 per cent: the legal limit for drivers in many places. The birds were also happy to sing while drunk. Using audio analysis software, the researchers determined the degree of "white noise", or disorganised sounds, in their songs. The drunk birds' songs were significantly more broken and disorganised. "It's their husky bar voice," says Olson. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Language
Link ID: 17383 - Posted: 10.18.2012

by Moheb Costandi NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA—Books and educational toys can make a child smarter, but they also influence how the brain grows, according to new research presented here on Sunday at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. The findings point to a "sensitive period" early in life during which the developing brain is strongly influenced by environmental factors. Studies comparing identical and nonidentical twins show that genes play an important role in the development of the cerebral cortex, the thin, folded structure that supports higher mental functions. But less is known about how early life experiences influence how the cortex grows. To investigate, neuroscientist Martha Farah of the University of Pennsylvania and her colleagues recruited 64 children from a low income background and followed them from birth through to late adolescence. They visited the children's homes at 4 and 8 years of age to evaluate their environment, noting factors such as the number of books and educational toys in their houses, and how much warmth and support they received from their parents. More than 10 years after the second home visit, the researchers used MRI to obtain detailed images of the participants' brains. They found that the level of mental stimulation a child receives in the home at age 4 predicted the thickness of two regions of the cortex in late adolescence, such that more stimulation was associated with a thinner cortex. One region, the lateral inferior temporal gyrus, is involved in complex visual skills such as word recognition. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Language
Link ID: 17382 - Posted: 10.18.2012

By Ferris Jabr With the exception of the cast of Disney’s The Little Mermaid—and Big Mouth Billy Bass—fish do not spring to mind as the animal kingdom’s most vocally gifted members. But one unusual singing fish has been teaching biologists and neuroscientists a lot about speech and hearing. Its bulging eyes and blubbery lips have graced several research posters at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting, which is in New Orleans, Louisiana this year. The finned crooner in question is the plainfin midshipman fish (Porichthys notatus), which belongs to a family of fish known as toadfish because of their squat, slimy appearance. Midshipman fish live along the Pacific coast from Alaska to Baja California at depths of up to 300 meters, burying themselves in the mud during the day and surfacing at night to feed. Their name is attributable to the hundreds of luminous spots called photophores that decorate their underbellies, which are somewhat reminiscent of the buttons on a naval officer’s uniform. The fish likely use these bioluminescent dots to attract small prey such as krill and to hide from predators by masking their own shadows with a camouflage technique known as counter-illumination. Midshipman fish come in three varieties: females, Type I males and the smaller Type II males. All three types are vocal, emitting short grunts to communicate with one another, but Type 1 males are the most voluble by far. In the spring and summer, Type 1 males head to shallow waters, excavate nests beneath rocks along the shoreline, hunker down and start to sing, using sonic muscles surrounding their inflatable swim bladders to hum for up to an hour at a time. This humming, which people have described a droning motorboat or an orchestra of mournful oboes, is so loud that it has been known to wake houseboat owners in San Francisco and Sausalito © 2012 Scientific American,

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Hearing
Link ID: 17381 - Posted: 10.17.2012

By Janet Raloff Carbon dioxide has been vilified for decades as a driver of global warming. A new study finds signs that CO2, exhaled in every breath, can exert an equally worrisome threat — impaired cognition — in nearly every energy-efficient classroom, meeting hall or office space. The work assessed decision-making in 22 healthy young adults. Their performance on six of nine tests dropped notably when researchers raised indoor carbon dioxide levels to 1,000 parts per million from a baseline of 600 ppm. On seven tests, performance fell substantially more when the room’s CO2 was boosted to 2,500 ppm, scientists report in a paper to be published in Environmental Health Perspectives. These data are surprising, says Roger Hedrick of Architectural Energy Corp. in Boulder, Colo., because “1,000 ppm of CO2 used to be considered a benchmark of good ventilation.” Hedrick, an environmental engineer, chairs the committee that drafts commercial ventilation standards through the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, & Air-Conditioning Engineers. Carbon dioxide levels are often substantially higher in buildings than the 350 to 400 ppm typically found outdoors. Indoor values of 600 ppm are considered very good. But depending on how many people inhabit a room and how many times per hour its air is exchanged with outdoor air through ventilation, “there are plenty of buildings where you could easily see 2,500 ppm of CO2 — or close to it — even with ventilation designs that are fully compliant with current standards,” Hedrick says. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2012

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 17380 - Posted: 10.17.2012

By Gary Stix First off, this study on a molecule tied to social interaction was conducted in animals. So I’m supposed to turn on the siren and the flashing red light here to let you know that the headline you just read might not apply in humans. Still, the animals in question, prairie voles, are a special case, models of faithfulness that put humans to shame when it comes to the delicate topic of monogamy. Once hitched, the rodents stick with their mates for life—an example of moral pulchritude in the animal kingdom that many of us human sinners can never hope to emulate. It could easily become the state animal for whole regions of the U.S. For just that alone, the implications of the experiment in question are particularly intriguing. The new research shows that oxytocin, the bonding hormone, is sometimes capable of turning the upstanding rodent into an anti-social lout, making the study results more compelling in many ways than if they were reported in errant humans. So the man-bites-dog headline stays. This all came up when Karen Bales, a professor at University of California, Davis, wanted to know what would happen if oxytocin gets administered for lengthy intervals, not the short-term dosing that has occurred in the multitude of previous vole studies that linked the hormone to monogamous behavior. In their experiment, Bales and team gave either a low, medium or high dose through the nose to 29 voles, and a saline solution to 14 controls At first, the animals became all cuddly as in previous studies But after three weeks, an entire vole childhood (from weaning to sexual maturity), they started breaking bad. Males did not engage in the normal behavior of “pair bonding,” that drives them to look for the girl of their dreams. And female voles’ natural mothering instinct seemed to disappear: when placed nearby young pups that were not their own, they didn’t dote, as they are wont to do. The cuddle hormone had turned the rodents into meanies. © 2012 Scientific American

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 17379 - Posted: 10.17.2012

(Relaxnews)—In a study of more than 90 men, scientists from the University of Bonn, Germany, found that subjects treated with a dose of testosterone before the study told fewer lies than those who received a placebo. "Testosterone has always been said to promote aggressive and risky behavior and posturing," says researcher and neuroscientist Bernard Weber. However, more recent studies indicate that it also fosters social behavior. Prior research has suggested that the hormone may actually cause people to be more "prosocial" in that they voluntarily act in the interest of others, writes the Atlantic magazine, but exactly how the hormone influences behaviors isn't understood. For this latest study, 46 subjects were treated with testosterone by applying it to the skin in gel form, while 45 subjects received a placebo. The next day, the subjects played a dice game in which it was easy for the men to lie to earn more money, with no possibility of being caught. The study was designed so that it was impossible even for the researchers to detect whether a subject was lying or not. Rather, they used statistics to analyze reported earnings that were higher than probability would allow, inferring from these how honest the subjects were being. While many people in the study lied about the game, there was a noticeable difference between the men boosted with testosterone and those who weren't—the testosterone group avoided the temptation to cheat more often. Blood tests confirmed the results that high testosterone levels were linked with more honest game playing. "Test subjects with the higher testosterone levels had clearly lied less frequently than untreated test subjects," says co-author Armin Falk. "This result clearly contradicts the one-dimensional approach that testosterone results in anti-social behavior." The study was published last week in the journal PLoS One . http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0046774 © 2012 NY Times Co.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 17378 - Posted: 10.17.2012

by Clare Wilson Why does making direct eye contact with someone give you that feeling of a special connection? Perhaps because it excites newly discovered "eye cells" in the amygdala, the part of the brain that processes emotions and social interactions. This new type of neuron was discovered in a Rhesus macaque. If humans have these neurons too, it may be that they are impaired in disorders such as autism and schizophrenia, which affect eye contact and social interactions. Katalin Gothard, a neurophysiologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and her team placed seven electrodes in the amygdala of a Rhesus macaque. The electrodes, each one-tenth the thickness of a human hair, allowed them to record activity in individual neurons as the macaque watched a video featuring another macaque. All the while, the team also tracked the macaque's gaze. Out of the 151 neurons the researchers could distinguish, 23 fired only when the macaque was looking at the eyes of the monkey in the video. Of these neurons, which the team call "eye cells", four fired more when the monkey in the video appeared to be gazing back at the laboratory macaque, as if the two animals were making eye contact. "These are cells that have been tuned by evolution to look at the eye, and they extract information about who you are, and most importantly, are you making eye contact with me," says Gothard. Other eye cells fired depending on whether the monkey in the video was behaving in a friendly, aggressive or neutral manner, but not in response to eye contact. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 17377 - Posted: 10.17.2012

The Crack Team That Removes & Preserves People's Brains Just Hours After They Die by Jeff Wheelwright On average, the residents of Sun City, Arizona, occupy their domiciles for a dozen years. When they depart—almost always by dying—they often leave their brains behind. The stages of physical and mental decline take them from their dream house to a hospital off Del Webb Boulevard, then to a nursing home, and finally back to the medical complex, where researchers harvest their most important organ. Hoping to do good for science, they have enrolled in the Brain and Body Donation Program of the Banner Sun Health Research Institute—widely considered the world’s preeminent brain bank. A large base of well-
documented donors in close proximity sets the Sun City program apart from other repositories, which often have scant information about patients who may be scattered and diverse. Here, healthy, active seniors who eventually die of, say, heart disease, can be compared with others who develop neurodegenerative disorders. Because the two sets of subjects have similar backgrounds, lifestyles, and ethnic traits, changes relating to a brain disease should be easier to detect. The institute is also famed for its crack autopsy team, which responds so quickly that no more than three hours elapse from the time a donor expires to the time that the brain is removed and preserved. “We’re not the biggest brain bank in the world, but we have the highest-quality tissue,” says pathologist Thomas Beach, the program director, who notes that donors must live within a 50-mile radius of the morgue. © 2012, Kalmbach Publishing Co.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 17376 - Posted: 10.17.2012

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR A new study suggests that prenatal exposure to mercury is associated with symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but the greater a mother’s consumption of fish — a source of mercury — the less likely her child is to suffer these symptoms. The apparently paradoxical findings, published online last week in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, come from an analysis of 607 children born between 1993 and 1998. The researchers reviewed data on the amounts of mercury in the mothers’ hair, comparing them against dietary records. At ages 7 to 10, the children underwent neuropsychological examinations. After controlling for fish consumption and many other factors, the scientists found an association between several A.D.H.D.-related behaviors and levels of mercury above one microgram per gram in the maternal hair samples. At the same time, they found that after adjusting for mercury levels, mothers who ate more than two servings of fish per week — more than the 12 ounces that government guidelines suggest — were less likely to have children with A.D.H.D.-related behaviors. “All fish has some mercury in it, but there are very different levels,” said the lead author, Sharon K. Sagiv, an assistant professor at Boston University. The findings may seem contradictory, she added, but “they highlight an important public health issue: Eating fish is good for you, but eating fish that is high in mercury is not.” Copyright 2012 The New York Times Company

Keyword: ADHD; Neurotoxins
Link ID: 17375 - Posted: 10.16.2012