Jon Bardin A building that once housed a Second World War torpedo factory seems an unlikely location for a project aiming to map the human brain. But the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging — an outpost of the Massachusetts General Hospital in an industrialized stretch of Boston's riverfront — is home to an impressive collection of magnetic resonance imaging machines. In January, I slid into the newest of these, head first. The operator ran a few test sequences to see whether I experienced any side effects from the unusually rapid changes in this machine's magnetic field. And, when I didn't — no involuntary muscle twitches or illusory flashes of light in my peripheral vision — we began. The machine hummed, then started to vibrate. For 90 minutes, I held still as it scanned my brain. That scan would be one of the first carried out by the Human Connectome Project (HCP), a five-year, US$40-million initiative funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, to map the brain's long-distance communications network. The network, dubbed the 'connectome', is a web of nerve-fibre bundles that criss-cross the brain in their thousands and form the bulk of the brain's white matter. It relays signals between specialized regions devoted to functions such as sight, hearing, motion and memory, and ties them together into a system that perceives, decides and acts as a unified whole. The connectome is bewilderingly complex and poorly understood. The HCP proposes to resolve this by using new-generation magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, like that used to scan my brain, to trace the connectomes of more than 1,000 individuals. The hope is that this survey will establish a baseline for what is normal, shed light on what the variations might mean for qualities such as intelligence or sociability, and possibly reveal what happens if the network goes awry. © 2012 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 16551 - Posted: 03.22.2012

By Gareth Cook MIT scientist Sebastian Seung describes the audacious plan to find the connectome--a map of every single neuron in the brain. Here, he says, is the secret of human identity. What makes us who we are? Where is our personal history recorded, or our hopes? What explains autism or schiziphrenia or remarkable genius? Sebastian Seung argues that it’s all in the connections our neurons make. In his new book, Connectome , he argues that technology has now reached a point where it is conceivable to start mapping at least portions of the connectome. It’s a daunting task, he says, but without it, neuroscience will be stuck. He answered questions from Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook. Cook: You argue in your book that neuroscience has a fundamental problem. What is the problem? Seung: Most people are familiar with the regional approach to neuroscience: divide the brain into regions such as the "left brain" and "frontal lobe," and figure out what each region does. This approach has helped physicians interpret the symptoms of brain injuries, but at the same time has frustrating limitations. How do regions carry out their functions? Why do they malfunction in mental disorders? What happens to regions when we learn? We can never obtain satisfying answers to these questions if we consider regions as the elementary, indivisible units of the brain. An obvious solution is to understand a region by subdividing it into neurons, and figure out how the neurons work together to perform the region's function. This neuronal approach has the potential to answer the big questions above, but so far has not succeeded. In fact, those who study regions sometimes criticize those who study neurons as too focused on minutiae. © 2012 Scientific American

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Brain imaging
Link ID: 16550 - Posted: 03.22.2012

By Maia Szalavitz One of the hardest challenges for families facing autism is the problem of touch. Often, autistic children resist hugging and other types of physical contact, causing distress all around. Now, a new study offers insight into why some people shrug off physical touches and how families affected by autism may learn to share hugs without overwhelming an autistic child’s senses. Yale neuroscientists recruited 19 young adults and imaged their brain activity as a researcher lightly brushed them on the forearm with a soft watercolor paintbrush. In some cases, the brushing was quick, and in others slow: prior studies have shown that most people like slow brushing and perceive it as affectionate contact, while the faster version is felt as less pleasant and more tickle-like. None of the participants in the current study had autism, but the researchers evaluated them for autistic traits — things like a preference for sameness, order and systems, rather than social interaction. They found that participants with the highest levels of autistic traits had a lower response in key social brain regions — the superior temporal sulcus (STS) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) — to the slow brushing. According to Martha Kaiser, senior author of the study and associate director of the Child Neuroscience Laboratory at the Yale Child Study Center, the STS is a critical hub of the social brain. “This region is important for perceiving the people around us, for visual social stimuli and for perceiving social versus nonsocial sounds,” she says. © 2012 Time Inc.

Keyword: Autism; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 16549 - Posted: 03.22.2012

What makes people creative? What gives some of us the ability to create work that captivates the eyes, minds and hearts of others? Jonah Lehrer, a writer specializing in neuroscience, addresses that question in his new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works. Lehrer defines creativity broadly, considering everything from the invention of masking tape to breakthroughs in mathematics; from memorable ad campaigns to Shakespearean tragedies. He finds that the conditions that favor creativity — our brains, our times, our buildings, our cities — are equally broad. Lehrer joins NPR's Robert Siegel to talk about the creative process — where great ideas come from, how to foster them, and what to do when you inevitably get stuck. On comparing Shakespeare with the inventor of masking tape "I think we absolutely can lump them all together. I think one of the mistakes we've made in talking about creativity is we've assumed it's a single verb — that when people are creative they're just doing one particular kind of thinking. But looking at creativity from the perspective of the brain, we can see that creativity is actually a bundle of distinct mental processes. "... Whether you're writing a Shakespearean tragedy, or trying to come up with a new graphic design or writing a piece of software, how we think about the problem should depend on the problem itself. Creativity is really a catch-all term for a variety of very different kinds of thinking." Copyright 2012 NPR

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 16548 - Posted: 03.20.2012

By Emily Sohn In his spare time, an otherwise ordinary 16-year old boy from New York taught himself Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Swahili, and a dozen other languages, the New York Times reported last week. And even though it's not entirely clear how close to fluent Timothy Doner is in any of his studied languages, the high school sophomore -- along with other polyglots like him -- are certainly different from most Americans, who speak one or maybe two languages. That raises the question: Is there something unique about certain brains, which allows some people to speak and understand so many more languages than the rest of us? The answer, experts say, seems to be yes, no and it's complicated. For some people, genes may prime the brain to be good at language learning, according to some new research. And studies are just starting to pinpoint a few brain regions that are extra-large or extra-efficient in people who excel at languages. For others, though, it's more a matter of being determined and motivated enough to put in the hours and hard work necessary to learn new ways of communicating. "Kids do well in what they like," said Michael Paradis, a neurolinguist at McGill University in Montreal, who compared language learning to piano, sports or anything else that requires discipline. "Kids who love math do well in math. He loves languages and is doing well in languages." © 2012 Discovery Communications, LLC.

Keyword: Language; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 16547 - Posted: 03.20.2012

by Elizabeth Norton Since the 1930s, doctors have been jolting the brains of depressed patients with electricity to relieve their symptoms. The treatment, known as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), works, but it can cause memory loss and confusion and lead to difficulty forming new memories. Today, physicians generally limit it to patients who are severely ill, including those at risk for suicide. Now, a brain-imaging study highlights the part of the brain most affected, perhaps pointing to safer, less-invasive ways to achieve the same results. Depression may be caused by an overactive brain, says physicist and neuroscientist Christian Schwarzbauer of the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom. "There may be so much internal communication that the brain becomes preoccupied with itself, less able to process information coming in from the outside world," he says, noting that studies have found that people with depression have heightened connectivity among brain networks involved in paying attention, monitoring internal and external cues, remembering the past, and controlling emotions. In a 2010 study, psychiatrist Yvette Sheline and colleagues at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, found that these overactive networks converged on a common point in a region called the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex. This common point, dubbed the dorsal nexus, may "hot wire" the brain networks together in a way that leads to depression, the authors hypothesized. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 16546 - Posted: 03.20.2012

Sharon Weinberger Why a U.S. Army soldier suspected of killing 16 civilians in Afghanistan did what he did is still unclear, but one thing is certain: his lawyers are likely to invoke emerging science about the effects of war on the brain to aid in his defense. In fact, even before Staff Sgt. Robert Bales' identity was revealed, unnamed US officials were telling major news outlets that the suspect had suffered a traumatic brain injury, or TBI. Shortly thereafter, Bales’ lawyer publicly suggested that his client suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), even though it does not appear to have been previously diagnosed. According to Dr. James Giordano, director of the Center for Neurotechnology Studies at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Arlington, Virginia, TBI manifests itself through a variety of complaints, which may range from mild to moderate. These could include disorientation, ringing in the ears, vertigo, and headaches, as well as a more profound constellation of severe neurological and psychological symptoms, such as impaired impulse control, acting out and aggressive behavior. “What we're seeing is that TBI presents as spectrum disorder with a variety of effects,” says Giordano. In fact, some people make a complete recovery from TBI, while others develop more severe conditions down the road, and it’s difficult to predict which injuries will persist, according to Giordano. “One would think the milder the injury, the less severe the symptoms,” says Giordano. “That’s not always the case.” © 2012 Nature Publishing Group,

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion; Aggression
Link ID: 16545 - Posted: 03.20.2012

By C. CLAIBORNE RAY Q. Are taste buds really divided into sections on the tongue that sense four different flavors? A. Trying to navigate the sense of taste with a map of the tongue labeled with regions sensitive to four kinds of flavor would be like trying to drive cross-country with a map that did not show the Interstate System. “Although there are subtle regional differences in sensitivity to different compounds over the lingual surface, the oft-quoted concept of a ‘tongue map’ defining distinct zones for sweet, bitter, salty and sour has largely been discredited,” according to a review article in The Journal of Cell Biology in August 2010. That map of relative sensitivities, frequently reproduced in textbooks after the researcher Edwin G. Boring sketched it in 1942, neglected the “fifth taste,” called umami, from the Japanese for rich, meaty protein flavors. The outdated map also did not reflect later findings that taste buds, clusters of sensitive cells, have different degrees of sensitivity to molecules carrying more than one basic taste and that these clusters are distributed across the entire surface of the tongue. Recognizing bitterness is thought to protect against bitter poisons; sweet tastes signal sugars and carbohydrates; salty tastes signal sodium compounds and other salts; and sour tastes indicate organic acids. The tongue may also have specialized receptors for fatty flavors, researchers say. © 2012 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 16544 - Posted: 03.20.2012

Brendan Borrell Paulo Mazzafera punched a pea-sized disc out of a waxy green coffee leaf, then placed the disc in a small vial with a mixture of chloroform and methanol to dissolve it. Later, he loaded the extract, along with 95 other samples, into a high-performance liquid chromatography machine, which separates out each chemical component. When the plant physiologist returned to his lab at the University of Campinas in Brazil the next morning, he sat down at his laptop to examine the results. Scrolling from one chromatogram to the next, he scrutinized the peak representing caffeine. In one plant, it was missing. Mazzafera ran the sample twice more and then, just before noon, called his collaborator Bernadete Silvarolla, based at the agricultural station nearby, to share the news. “Are you sure?” she asked. He was. In fact, he was thrilled. After screening thousands of plants over the course of two decades, his project to find a naturally caffeine-free coffee finally seemed to be bearing fruit. That was in late 2003. Coffee contains some 2,000 chemical compounds that give the drink its enticing aroma and flavour, including caffeine, a stimulant and natural pesticide. Removing the caffeine while leaving all the others intact poses a significant challenge. Brewers have generally turned to chemistry: Ludwig Roselius of Bremen, Germany, patented the first commercial decaffeination process in 1905. But his coffee, marketed as Kaffee HAG, used benzene in the extraction process, and the chemical was later replaced by less toxic solvents. Today, companies may instead douse raw green coffee beans in high-pressure liquid carbon dioxide or soak them in hot water for several hours to remove the caffeine before roasting. Aficionados say that all these methods destroy the taste, but the decaf market is still worth US$2 billion a year. © 2012 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 16543 - Posted: 03.20.2012

By YUDHIJIT BHATTACHARJEE SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age. This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development. They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles. Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle Martin-Rhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins — one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle. © 2012 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Language; Intelligence
Link ID: 16542 - Posted: 03.19.2012

By Eric Michael Johnson In my cover article out this week in Times Higher Education I featured the life and work of famed primatologist and evolutionary theorist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. While she never intended to be a radical, she has nevertheless had a radical influence on how primatology and evolutionary biology address female strategies as well as the evolutionary influences on infants. Hrdy graduated summa cum laude from Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts and received her Ph.D. in anthropology from Harvard. She is a former Guggenheim fellow and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the California Academy of Sciences. She is currently professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis. In our discussion, Hrdy explores both her own life as well as how her personal experiences inspired her to ask different questions than many of her scientific colleagues. While it may not seem like a particularly dramatic idea to emphasize the evolutionary selection pressures on mothers and their offspring, it is a telling insight into the unconscious (and at times fully conscious) sexism that has long been a part of the scientific process. Through her work, in books such as The Woman that Never Evolved, selected by the New York Times as one of its Notable Books of 1981, Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection, chosen by both Publisher’s Weekly and Library Journal as one of the “Best Books of 1999″ and, her latest, Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding, Hrdy has challenged, and transcended, many of the flawed assumptions that biologists have held dating back to the Victorian era. It is a body of work that continues to provoke and inspire a new generation of scientists and was highly influential in my own scientific work. © 2012 Scientific American,

Keyword: Evolution; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 16541 - Posted: 03.19.2012

By Melinda Wenner Moyer Is intelligence innate, or can you boost it with effort? The way you answer that question may determine how well you learn. Those who think smarts are malleable are more likely to bounce back from their mistakes and make fewer errors in the future, according to a study published last October in Psychological Science. Researchers at Michigan State University asked 25 undergraduate students to participate in a simple, repetitive computer task: they had to press a button whenever the letters that appeared on the screen conformed to a particular pattern. When they made a mistake, which happened about 9 percent of the time, the subjects realized it almost immediately—at which point their brain produced two tiny electrical responses that the researchers recorded using electrodes. The first reaction indicates awareness that a mistake was made, whereas the second, called error positivity, is believed to represent the desire to fix that slipup. Later, the researchers asked the students whether they believed intelligence was fixed or could be learned. Although everyone slowed down after erring, those who were “growth-minded”—that is, people who considered intelligence to be pliable—elicited stronger error-positivity responses than the other subjects. They subsequently made fewer mistakes, too. “Everybody says, ‘Oh, I did something wrong, I should slow down,’ but it was only the growth-minded individuals who actually did something with that information and made it better,” explains lead author Jason Moser, a clinical psychologist at Michigan State. © 2012 Scientific American,

Keyword: Intelligence; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 16540 - Posted: 03.19.2012

Ewen Callaway A bone-marrow transplant can treat a mouse version of Rett syndrome, a severe autism spectrum disorder that affects roughly 1 in 10,000–20,000 girls born worldwide (boys with the disease typically die within a few weeks of birth). The findings, published today in Nature1, suggest that brain-dwelling immune cells called microglia are defective in Rett syndrome. The authors say their findings also raise the possibility that bone-marrow transplants or other means of boosting the brain’s immune cells could help to treat the disease. “If we show the immune system is playing a very important role in Rett patients and we could replace it in a safe way, we may develop some feasible therapies in the future,” says Jonathan Kipnis, a neuroscientist at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, who led the study. Mutations in a single gene on the X chromosome, MECP2, cause the disease. Because they have only one X chromosome, boys born with the mutation die within weeks of birth. Girls with one faulty copy develop Rett syndrome. Symptoms of Rett syndrome typically set in between 6 and 18 months of age. Girls with the disease have trouble putting on weight and often do not learn to speak. They repeat behaviours such as hand-washing and tend to have trouble walking. Many develop breathing problems and apnoea. Rett syndrome is classified as an autism spectrum disorder, and treatments focus on symptoms such as nutritional and gastrointestinal problems. © 2012 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Autism; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 16539 - Posted: 03.19.2012

MONKEYS with Parkinson's disease-like symptoms have had their suffering eased by an injection of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) into their brain. Jun Takahashi of Kyoto University in Japan and colleagues injected these cells into monkeys whose brains had been damaged by a chemical that destroys dopamine-producing neurons and so causes Parkinson's symptoms. Two monkeys received hESCs that had been matured into an early form of neural cell. Six months later, the monkeys had recovered 20 to 45 per cent of the movement they had lost before treatment. Post-mortems a year after treatment showed that the cells had developed into fully functioning dopamine-secreting neurons. Another monkey that received less-mature neural cells also showed improvements (Stem Cells, DOI: 10.1002/stem.1060). "Monkeys starting with tremors and rigidity [began] to move smoothly, and animals originally confined to sitting down were able to walk around," says Takahashi. The team says it will probably be four to six years before clinical trials in humans begin. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Parkinsons; Stem Cells
Link ID: 16538 - Posted: 03.19.2012

Researchers believe they have identified why a mutation in a particular gene can lead to obesity. Mouse experiments suggested the body's message to "stop eating" was blocked if the animals had the mutation. The study, published in Nature Medicine, said the brain's response to appetite hormones was being disrupted. The Georgetown University Medical Center researchers hope their findings could lead to new ways to control weight. Many genes have been linked to obesity, one of them - brain-derived neurotrophic factor gene - has been shown to play a role in putting on weight in animal and some human studies. However, scientists at the Georgetown University Medical Center said the explanation for this link was unknown. In studies on mice which had been genetically modified to have the mutation, the mice consumed up to 80% more food than normal. After a meal, hormones such as insulin and leptin should tell the brain that the body is full and should stop eating. The researchers showed that in the mutated mice the message was not being passed on from the hormones in the blood to the correct part of the brain. BBC © 2012

Keyword: Obesity; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 16537 - Posted: 03.19.2012

By ANNIE MURPHY PAUL Brain scans are revealing what happens in our heads when we read a detailed description, an evocative metaphor or an emotional exchange between characters. Stories, this research is showing, stimulate the brain and even change how we act in life. Researchers have long known that the “classical” language regions, like Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, are involved in how the brain interprets written words. What scientists have come to realize in the last few years is that narratives activate many other parts of our brains as well, suggesting why the experience of reading can feel so alive. Words like “lavender,” “cinnamon” and “soap,” for example, elicit a response not only from the language-processing areas of our brains, but also those devoted to dealing with smells. In a 2006 study published in the journal NeuroImage, researchers in Spain asked participants to read words with strong odor associations, along with neutral words, while their brains were being scanned by a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine. When subjects looked at the Spanish words for “perfume” and “coffee,” their primary olfactory cortex lit up; when they saw the words that mean “chair” and “key,” this region remained dark. The way the brain handles metaphors has also received extensive study; some scientists have contended that figures of speech like “a rough day” are so familiar that they are treated simply as words and no more. Last month, however, a team of researchers from Emory University reported in Brain & Language that when subjects in their laboratory read a metaphor involving texture, the sensory cortex, responsible for perceiving texture through touch, became active. Metaphors like “The singer had a velvet voice” and “He had leathery hands” roused the sensory cortex, while phrases matched for meaning, like “The singer had a pleasing voice” and “He had strong hands,” did not. © 2012 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Language; Brain imaging
Link ID: 16536 - Posted: 03.19.2012

By Kathleen McAuliffe No one would accuse Jaroslav Flegr of being a conformist. A self-described “sloppy dresser,” the 53-year-old Czech scientist has the contemplative air of someone habitually lost in thought, and his still-youthful, square-jawed face is framed by frizzy red hair that encircles his head like a ring of fire. Certainly Flegr’s thinking is jarringly unconventional. Starting in the early 1990s, he began to suspect that a single-celled parasite in the protozoan family was subtly manipulating his personality, causing him to behave in strange, often self-destructive ways. And if it was messing with his mind, he reasoned, it was probably doing the same to others. The parasite, which is excreted by cats in their feces, is called Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii or Toxo for short) and is the microbe that causes toxoplasmosis—the reason pregnant women are told to avoid cats’ litter boxes. Since the 1920s, doctors have recognized that a woman who becomes infected during pregnancy can transmit the disease to the fetus, in some cases resulting in severe brain damage or death. T. gondii is also a major threat to people with weakened immunity: in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, before good antiretroviral drugs were developed, it was to blame for the dementia that afflicted many patients at the disease’s end stage. Healthy children and adults, however, usually experience nothing worse than brief flu-like symptoms before quickly fighting off the protozoan, which thereafter lies dormant inside brain cells—or at least that’s the standard medical wisdom. But if Flegr is right, the “latent” parasite may be quietly tweaking the connections between our neurons, changing our response to frightening situations, our trust in others, how outgoing we are, and even our preference for certain scents. And that’s not all. He also believes that the organism contributes to car crashes, suicides, and mental disorders such as schizophrenia. When you add up all the different ways it can harm us, says Flegr, “Toxoplasma might even kill as many people as malaria, or at least a million people a year.” Copyright © 2012 by The Atlantic Monthly Group.

Keyword: Emotions; Aggression
Link ID: 16535 - Posted: 03.19.2012

Distinct patterns of activity — which may indicate a predisposition to care for infants — appear in the brains of adults who view an image of an infant face — even when the child is not theirs, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and in Germany, Italy, and Japan. Seeing images of infant faces appeared to activate in the adult's brains circuits that reflect preparation for movement and speech as well as feelings of reward. The findings raise the possibility that studying this activity will yield insights not only into the caregiver response, but also when the response fails, such as in instances of child neglect or abuse. While the researchers recorded participants' brain activity, the participants did not speak or move. Yet their brain activity was typical of patterns preceding such actions as picking up or talking to an infant, the researchers explained. The activity pattern could represent a biological impulse that governs adults' interactions with small children. From their study results, the researchers concluded that this pattern is specific to seeing human infants. The pattern did not appear when the participants looked at photos of adults or of animals — even baby animals. Their findings appear in the journal NeuroImage.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Brain imaging
Link ID: 16534 - Posted: 03.17.2012

Martin E. Schwab & Anita D. Buchli Recently, at the annual retreat of the Zurich Neuroscience Center, we ran into a former colleague who had often helped us to prepare for courses we were teaching. But he was not there to teach — he was participating in a demonstration as a patient. A stroke had left him paralysed on one side, wheelchair-bound and unable to speak. He had been looking forward to interacting with the students, but when he could not communicate with them, he broke into tears. After a difficult rehabilitation, he was able to resume some of his work, but he still cannot speak. His arm and leg will probably remain paralysed for the rest of his life. Our colleague was one of the 8.2 million Europeans who experience stroke every year1. The brain is a source of many devastating disorders — such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — and injuries to the spinal cord or brain can lead to lifelong impairments. At present, disabling spinal-cord injuries affect roughly 350,000 people in Europe and 250,000 in the United States. Traumatic brain injuries are about ten times more common. Treatments that could restore lost functions to people with such injuries would radically change their lives and decrease the burden to their families and social environment. The economic interest to drug companies and health insurers seems obvious. Yet drug companies have withdrawn from neuroscience, more so than from any other disease area. Last year, Novartis closed its preclinical neuroscience research facility in Basel, Switzerland. Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca had already made similar moves. Merck and Sanofi are also cutting research on brain diseases. © 2012 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Stroke; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 16533 - Posted: 03.17.2012

By HENRY ALFORD COILED viper-like within the word “insomnia” is the terrifying “omnia.” Why does sleeplessness seem all-powerful? Because some nights I can’t get down into the Valley regardless of how many Dolls I lash to my burro. I’m not alone. It’s difficult to go to a Manhattan cocktail party these days and not get roped into a discussion of someone’s insomnia or the relative merits of melatonin and “snore absorption rooms.” If you find yourself buttonholed by a well-heeled but heavy-lidded person, prepare for a slightly defensive diatribe called “Why I Have Recently Purchased a $60,000 Mattress.” Glamorous (and sometimes dubious-sounding) treatments continue to pop up, a fact underlined by last week’s designation by the National Sleep Foundation as sleep awareness week. Europe’s first “nap bar” recently opened in Paris, giving the weary a place to rest on a massage chair or zero-gravity chair. The Grand Resort Bad Ragaz in Switzerland will film your sleeping patterns during the night and then analyze them and suggest cures. At La Mansión del Rio in San Antonio, you’re encouraged to put some of the resort’s “worry dolls” (one doll for each of your worries) under your pillow so that, through Indian magicking, you’ll awake liberated, fresh, burden-free — a person who can crush a plaything solely with the force of his head. In Midtown Manhattan, the Benjamin Hotel employs a sleep concierge, on call to help guests choose from 12 free sleep-friendly pillows, as well as field requests for sleep aids like massages and midnight snacks (e.g., hot chocolate or milk and cookies). © 2012 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 16532 - Posted: 03.17.2012