How many neurons are there in the human brain? It was a question that scientists thought they had nailed – and the answer was 100bn (give or take). If you went looking you would find that figure repeated widely in the neuroscience literature and beyond. But when a researcher in Brazil called Dr Suzana Herculano-Houzel started digging, she discovered that no one in the field could actually remember where the 100bn figure had come from – let alone how it had been arrived at. So she set about discovering the true figure (HT to the excellent Nature neuroscience podcast NeuroPod). This involved a remarkable – and to some I suspect unsettling – piece of research. Her team took the brains of four adult men, aged 50, 51, 54 and 71, and turned them into what she describes as "brain soup". All of the men had died of non-neurological diseases and had donated their brains for research. "It took me a couple of months to make peace with this idea that I was going to take somebody's brain or an animal's brain and turn it into soup," she told Nature. "But the thing is we have been learning so much by this method we've been getting numbers that people had not been able to get … It's really just one more method that's not any worse than just chopping your brain into little pieces." She told me that so far, she has only looked at four brains, all of them from men. © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 16451 - Posted: 03.01.2012

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR Low blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids are associated with smaller brain volume and poorer performance on tests of mental acuity, even in people without apparent dementia, according to a new study. In the analysis, published online Monday in the journal Neurology, scientists examined 1,575 dementia-free men and women whose average age was 67. The researchers analyzed the fatty acids of the subjects’ red blood cells, a more reliable measurement than a plasma blood test or an estimate based on diet. They used an M.R.I. scan to measure brain volume and white matter hyperintensities, a radiological finding indicative of vascular damage. People in the lowest one-quarter for omega-3 levels had significantly lower total cerebral brain volume than those in the highest one-quarter, even after adjusting for age, body mass index, smoking and other factors. They also performed significantly worse on tests of visual memory, executive function and abstract memory than those in the highest one-quarter. There was no significant association with white matter hyperintensity volume. “We feel that omega-3’s reduce vascular pathology and thus reduce the rate of brain aging,” said Dr. Zaldy S. Tan, the lead author and associate professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. Few in the study were taking omega-3 supplements, Dr. Tan said. The main reason that some had higher blood levels of omega-3’s was that they ate more fatty fish. © 2012 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 16450 - Posted: 02.28.2012

By RONI CARYN RABIN Many people are unaware that dozens of painkillers, antihistamines and psychiatric medications — from drugstore staples to popular antidepressants — can adversely affect brain function, mostly in the elderly. Regular use of multiple medications that have this effect has been linked to cognitive impairment and memory loss. Called anticholinergics, the drugs block the action of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, sometimes as a direct action, but often as a side effect. Acetylcholine is a chemical messenger with a range of functions in the body, memory production and cognitive function among them. The difficulty for patients is that the effect of anticholinergic drugs is cumulative. Doctors are not always aware of all of the medications their patients take, and they do not always think to review the anticholinergic properties of the ones they prescribe. It’s a particular problem for older patients, who are more vulnerable to the effects of these drugs and who tend to take more medicines over all. Now a spate of new research studies has focused on anticholinergic medicines. After following more than 13,000 British men and women 65 or older for two years, researchers found that those taking more than one anticholinergic drug scored lower on tests of cognitive function than those who were not using any such drugs, and that the death rate for the heavy users during the course of the study was 68 percent higher. © 2012 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Alzheimers
Link ID: 16449 - Posted: 02.28.2012

By Michelle Roberts Health reporter, BBC News Sleeping pills used by thousands of people in the UK appear to be linked with a higher death risk, doctors warn. The American study in BMJ Open compared more than 10,000 patients on tablets like temazepam with 23,000 similar patients not taking these drugs. Death risk among users was about four times higher, although the absolute risk was still relatively low. Experts say while the findings highlight a potential risk, proof of harm is still lacking. They say patients should not be alarmed nor stop their medication, but if they are concerned they should discuss this with their doctor or pharmacist. UK guidelines for NHS staff say hypnotic drugs should only be used for short periods of time because of tolerance to the drug and the risk of dependency. But they make no mention of an associated death risk, despite other studies having already reported this potential risk. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency said it would consider the results of this latest study and whether it has any implications for current prescribing guidance. BBC © 2012

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 16448 - Posted: 02.28.2012

By Laura Sanders SALT LAKE CITY — When it comes tough financial decisions, people are often clueless. But some cash-savvy nerve cells deep in the brain know what to do. And these cells know the plan seconds before the person actually decides on a course of action, new research shows. The findings, presented February 25 at the Computational and Systems Neuroscience meeting, may help scientists understand how people make difficult decisions. Shaun Patel of Massachusetts General Hospital and colleagues enlisted eight people undergoing experimental therapy to alleviate severe depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder that involved implanting electrodes deep into the brain. During surgery, the electrodes eavesdropped on the behavior of individual nerve cells in an otherwise unreachable area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens. Other places in the brain feed lots of diverse signals to the nucleus accumbens: Information about a person’s emotions, memories and more sophisticated reasoning — key ingredients for decision making — all flow into this area. While in the operating room, participants played about 250 rounds of a simplified version of the card game “War,” in which two players each receive a card, and the higher card wins. The deck contained only cards numbered 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 — all spades. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2012

Keyword: Attention; Consciousness
Link ID: 16447 - Posted: 02.28.2012

by Daniel Strain Red dresses muddle men's minds, just ask The Matrix's Neo. In a scene from the 1999 sci-fi film, the hero is famously ambushed after becoming distracted by a woman on the street wearing a slinky red outfit. Now, a new study shows how such duds attain their sway. Men rate women wearing red clothing as being more interested in sex, hinting that humans may be conditioned to associate the color with fertility. The pull of red is nothing new. Women have donned pinkish blush and bright lipstick for nearly 12,000 years. And, if you're lucky enough to get a Valentine's Day card, it will probably come decorated in tiny red hearts. It's an effect that likely stems from biology, says Adam Pazda, a psychologist at the University of Rochester in New York state and an author of the new study. When many primate females—from chimpanzees to types of baboons called mandrills—become fertile, their estrogen levels peak, opening up their blood vessels and turning their faces bright red. This flushed complexion seems to give males the signal that it's time to make their move. The same could be true for humans, Pazda says. In a previous study, scientists showed that men seem to be more attracted to women clothed in red rather than in a blah color such as white. That's regardless of the cut, he adds. "It doesn't have to be a red dress or a sexy outfit," he says. "It can be a red T-shirt." To understand why, Pazda and his colleagues conducted a simple experiment. They showed 25 men a photo of a single woman doctored to look, in different cases, like she was wearing either a red or white T-shirt. The researchers then asked the volunteers to gauge, on a scale from 1 to 9, how keen the model seemed to be on romance. In other words, the men answered the question: "Is she interested in sex?" © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Emotions
Link ID: 16446 - Posted: 02.28.2012

by Michael Marshall WHEN a new leader takes control of a troop of gelada monkeys, he is likely to kill the offspring of his predecessor. His arrival is also bad news for young yet to be born: they'll be aborted within weeks. Named for Hilda Bruce who first observed it in mice, the "Bruce effect" is common in lab animals. In fact, some biologists suspect it is an artefact of keeping animals in labs. Jacinta Beehner of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and colleagues have now found evidence of the effect in wild geladas (Theropithecus gelada), an Ethiopian monkey related to baboons. They found that the number of births fell sharply in the six months after a new dominant male took over a group, suggesting females were aborting their fetuses. As a check, Beehner took hormone samples from females' faeces, allowing her to track 60 pregnancies closely. Of nine failures, eight occurred in the two weeks after the father was replaced. Beehner says the strategy makes sense, because females don't want to waste energy on offspring likely to be killed after they are born. We don't know how the females do it, says Peter Brennan of the University of Bristol, UK, who was not part of the study. It may simply be a response to the stress of the takeover. Journal reference: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1213600 © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 16445 - Posted: 02.28.2012

By Karen Weintraub Marjorie Nicholas, associate chairwoman of the department of communication sciences and disorders at the MGH Institute of Health Professions, is an expert in the language disorder aphasia, and has been treating former Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who has the condition. Q. What is aphasia and how do people get it? A. Aphasia affects your ability to speak, to understand language, to read and to write. It’s extremely variable. Some might have a severe problem in expression but really pretty good understanding of spoken language, and somebody else might have a very different profile. Typically, people get aphasia by having a stroke that damages parts of the left side of the brain, which is dominant for language. People can also get aphasia from other types of injuries like head injuries, or in Gabby’s case, a gunshot wound to the head that damages that same language area of the brain. It is more common than people realize. Q. How does Giffords fit into the spectrum of symptoms you’ve described? A. Her understanding of spoken language is really very good. Her difficulties are more in the expression. Q. You obviously can’t violate her privacy, but what can you say about your work with Giffords? A. I worked with her for two weeks last fall, and [colleague Nancy Helm-Estabrooks of the University of North Carolina] and I are planning to work with her again for a week this spring. We’ll need to see where she is again. I’m assuming she will have continued to improve and we’ll want to keep her going on that track. © 2012 NY Times Co

Keyword: Language; Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 16444 - Posted: 02.28.2012

By NATALIE ANGIER You may think you’re pretty familiar with your hands. You may think you know them like the back of your hand. But as the following exercises derived from the latest hand research will reveal, your pair of bioengineering sensations still hold quite a few surprises up their sleeve. • Make a fist with your nondominant hand, knuckle side up, and then try to extend each finger individually while keeping the other digits balled up tight. For which finger is it extremely difficult, maybe even impossible, to comply? • Now hold your hand palm up, fingers splayed straight out, and try curling your pinky inward without bending the knuckles of any other finger. Can you do it? • Imagine you’re an expert pianist or touch-typist, working on your chosen keyboard. For every note or letter you strike, how many of your fingers will move? • You’re at your desk and, without giving it much thought, you start reaching over for your water bottle, or your pen. What does your hand start doing long before it makes contact with the desired object? And a high-five to our nearest nonhuman kin: • What is the most important difference between a chimpanzee’s hands and our own? (a) the chimpanzee’s thumbs are not opposable; (b) the chimpanzee’s thumbs are shorter than ours; or (c) the chimpanzee’s thumbs are longer than ours. © 2012 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Evolution; Muscles
Link ID: 16443 - Posted: 02.28.2012

By Teller, Smithsonian magazine, In the last half decade, magic—normally deemed entertainment fit only for children and tourists in Las Vegas—has become shockingly respectable in the scientific world. Even I—not exactly renowned as a public speaker—have been invited to address conferences on neuroscience and perception. I asked a scientist friend (whose identity I must protect) why the sudden interest. He replied that those who fund science research find magicians “sexier than lab rats.” I’m all for helping science. But after I share what I know, my neuroscientist friends thank me by showing me eye-tracking and MRI equipment, and promising that someday such machinery will help make me a better magician. I have my doubts. Neuroscientists are novices at deception. Magicians have done controlled testing in human perception for thousands of years. I remember an experiment I did at the age of 11. My test subjects were Cub Scouts. My hypothesis (that nobody would see me sneak a fishbowl under a shawl) proved false and the Scouts pelted me with hard candy. If I could have avoided those welts by visiting an MRI lab, I surely would have. But magic’s not easy to pick apart with machines, because it’s not really about the mechanics of your senses. Magic’s about understanding—and then manipulating—how viewers digest the sensory information.

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 16442 - Posted: 02.28.2012

By PAM BELLUCK SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Secel Montgomery Sr. stabbed a woman in the stomach, chest and throat so fiercely that he lost count of the wounds he inflicted. In the nearly 25 years he has been serving a life sentence, he has gotten into fights, threatened a prison official and been caught with marijuana. Despite that, he has recently been entrusted with an extraordinary responsibility. He and other convicted killers at the California Men’s Colony help care for prisoners with Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia, assisting ailing inmates with the most intimate tasks: showering, shaving, applying deodorant, even changing adult diapers. Their growing roster of patients includes Joaquin Cruz, a convicted killer who is now so addled that he thinks he sees his brother in the water of a toilet, and Walter Gregory, whose short-term memory is ebbing even as he vividly recalls his crime: stabbing and mutilating his girlfriend with a switchblade. “I cut her eyes out, too,” Mr. Gregory declared recently. Dementia in prison is an underreported but fast-growing phenomenon, one that many prisons are desperately unprepared to handle. It is an unforeseen consequence of get-tough-on-crime policies — long sentences that have created a large population of aging prisoners. About 10 percent of the 1.6 million inmates in America’s prisons are serving life sentences; another 11 percent are serving over 20 years. © 2012 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 16441 - Posted: 02.27.2012

Giovanni Frazzetto From rage and grief to exquisite tendresse, emotion is laid bare in theatre. Few art forms electrify or illuminate as powerfully as stage acting. But how have theatrical greats such as John Gielgud or Vanessa Redgrave cast their spell? Acting may be one of the most ancient arts, but science is only just beginning to get to grips with it. Science started to seep into theatre in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with the Russian actor and theatre director Constantin Stanislavski. Founder of the influential Moscow Art Theatre, Stanislavski turned to physiologist Ivan Pavlov's research on conditioned reflexes to improve his acting method. The aim was to create performance that united psychological experience and physical action. Our brains recreate the emotions of actors such as Geraldine James when we watch them perform. Stanislavski sought a way to consciously trigger an actor's emotional expression. Science had begun to discover that neural pathways underlie complex behaviour and emotions, which can be conditioned in response to a changing environment. By practising key physical actions pertinent to the character and the play, Stanislavski realized, the actor could learn, by reflex, how to express the psychological experience of the emotion — with help from the imagination. A particular posture or movement would trigger a particular emotion. So by working hard on small actions such as clenching the fists and tensing the neck muscles, the actor could trigger anger, or they could awaken feelings of despair by shuffling, drooping and bowing the shoulders. © 2012 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 16440 - Posted: 02.27.2012

by Sheila Eldred Football players as young as 7 years old sustained an average of 107 hits per player during a single season, the first study to analyze head impact exposure in youth football shows. The hardest of the hits came during practice, not games. The study, published in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering, analyzed just seven kids, but the findings helped secure funding for a much larger study announced this week. Head impact exposure in high school and college athletes has been well documented. While this study suggests that youth football players sustain less frequent hits, the level of acceleration can reach the same level measured in adults -- which is high enough to cause concussions. "This new study for 2012 allows for a dramatically increased sample size [approximately 50,000 head impacts will likely be recorded] and head exposure mapping for all age groups,” said Stefan Duma, department head of the Virginia Tech – Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, which directs the project. To study the biomechanics of impacts, researchers will use medical imaging protocols combined with brain computer modeling. The initial study also led to the development of the National Impact Database, containing the first safety rating system for adult football helmets. © 2012 Discovery Communications, LLC.

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 16439 - Posted: 02.27.2012

Hundreds of Canadian MS patients have gone out of country for a controversial neck vein treatment in recent years. Hundreds of Canadian MS patients have gone out of country for a controversial neck vein treatment in recent years. (CBC) Saskatchewan multiple sclerosis patients hoping to take part in a clinical trial of a controversial treatment may soon get a call from the ministry of health. But only around 10 per cent of those who applied will actually get that call. Deb Jordan, a ministry spokeswoman, said 670 people had signed up as of Thursday, just ahead of the Friday midnight deadline for applications to be part of a two-year, double-blind trial of what has been dubbed liberation therapy. Jordan said patient names will be randomly drawn to determine who will fill 86 spots in the test, which will take place in Albany, N.Y. A successful candidate must be a Saskatchewan resident, under the age of 60 and not had liberation treatment. "Once we verify that information, then the applicant will be forwarded to the folks who are involved in the clinical trial," said Jordan. "I want to also emphasize that the fact that a patient may be drawn does not necessarily mean that they will move on to the clinical trial. © CBC 2012

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 16438 - Posted: 02.27.2012

Scottish research has shown it could be possible to reverse the muscle damage seen in children with a form of motor neurone disease. Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) - 'floppy baby syndrome' - is the leading genetic cause of death in children. It affects one in 6,000 births, but 50% of those with the most severe form die before the age of two. The University of Edinburgh mouse study suggests a drug could boost levels of a protein and so reverse muscle damage. Children with SMA experience progressive muscle wastage, loss of mobility and motor function. Now 13, he was diagnosed at the age of three. "My wife first knew there was something wrong when he was two. He was just walking funnily. "But he wasn't diagnosed until the third time she took him to the doctors. "Initially there was a question as to whether it was SMA or muscular dystrophy. "We'd heard of muscular dystrophy - but not SMA. BBC © 2012

Keyword: Movement Disorders; Muscles
Link ID: 16437 - Posted: 02.27.2012

By Dwayne Godwin and Jorge Cham © 2012 Scientific American

Keyword: Attention; Emotions
Link ID: 16436 - Posted: 02.27.2012

By Hannah Tepper At the end of his second year of Harvard graduate school, neuroscientist and bestselling author Richard Davidson did something his colleagues suspected would mark the end of his academic career: He skipped town and went to India and Sri Lanka for three months to “study meditation.” In the ’70s, just as today, people tended to lump meditation into the new-age category, along with things like astrology, crystals, tantra and herbal “remedies.” But contrary to what his skeptics presumed, not only did Davidson return to resume his studies at Harvard, his trip also marked the beginning of Davidson’s most spectacular body of work: neuroscientific research indicating that meditation (and other strictly mental activity) changes the neuroplasticity of the brain. Thirty years later, Davidson is still researching and writing about the intersection of neuroscience and emotion — he currently teaches psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In his new book, written with Sharon Begley, “The Emotional Life of Your Brain: How Its Unique Patterns Affect the Way You Think, Feel, and Live, and How You Can Change Them,” Davidson lays out a fascinating theory that parses out emotional style into six dimensions, giving readers a better understanding of where they stand on this emotional plane and how emotional styles affect the qualities of their everyday lives. Last week Salon spoke over the phone with Davidson about how Botox injections disrupt our ability to emote, the connection between happiness and health, and why emotion has been unfairly and historically underappreciated. © 2012 Salon Media Group,

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 16435 - Posted: 02.27.2012

By JoNel Aleccia For Kelly Wooldridge of St. Louis, the change in her son’s behavior was so abrupt, it was like someone flipped a switch. Overnight, Brendan, now 10, went from being an easy-going, “huggy-kissy” kid to a rageful child plagued with tics, compulsions and obsessions, she said. “He would walk up and choke kids at school, or pick up a chair and throw it at them,” recalled Wooldridge, 37. Brendan developed facial tics, constant throat clearing, some humming. "He was just miserable in his own skin," his mother said. The shift first occurred when Brendan was 3, just after several recurring bouts of strep throat. The disturbing behaviors lingered, seeming to wax and wane for the next few years with no clear cause or explanation. It wasn’t until last year that Wooldridge -- like a growing number of parents, pediatricians and researchers -- finally connected the dots between the common childhood infection and the sudden onset of some forms of mental illness. “Last spring, we learned about PANDAS,” said Wooldridge. “I thought it sounded a little crazy, but it totally fit.” PANDAS -- or Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections -- is the unusual diagnosis given to a group of children who abruptly develop Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or tic disorders such as Tourette’s Syndrome – but only after contracting infections such as scarlet fever or strep throat caused by Group A streptococcus bacteria. © 2012 msnbc.com

Keyword: OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 16434 - Posted: 02.25.2012

Erin Allday For a few months after she was born, Ashley Chase cried inconsolably every day, for hours at a time. Her mother didn't call it colic at the time, but now she wonders. There was never any obvious cause for Ashley's distress, and she was an otherwise happy and healthy baby. The fussiness eventually went away without cause, as is often the case with colicky babies. And perhaps most intriguing - Ashley, now 14, suffers migraines. Just like her mom. Colic, it turns out, may be closely connected to migraines, say researchers at UCSF. A study released this week found that moms who suffer migraines are 2 1/2 times more likely to have colicky infants than those who don't. "It kind of makes sense," said Ashley, a patient at the UCSF Headache Center who lives in Pleasanton with her parents. "Everything's 'more' when you have a migraine. Everything's too loud, everything's too much. I imagine it would feel the same for a baby." The UCSF research, which will be formally presented at an American Academy of Neurology meeting in New Orleans next month, could shed light on two poorly understood and difficult-to-treat conditions: migraines and colic. Earlier research has hinted at a connection between the two conditions, but the UCSF study is the most convincing so far, neurologists and headache experts said. The study looked at 154 mothers of infants and found that more than 28 percent of women who suffered migraines had colicky babies, compared with 11 percent of women without migraines. © 2012 Hearst Communications Inc.

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 16433 - Posted: 02.25.2012

By Emily Willingham Attention Deficit–Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) had a star turn in the recent, high-profile murder trial of University of Virginia lacrosse star George Huguely. Lawyers for the defense aren’t using the condition to explain away their client’s presumed violent behavior; rather, they’re saying that the woman he’s accused of killing may have died from her own, personal battle with ADHD. Amidst their exculpatory evidence was the victim’s prescription for Adderall, and they offered that she could have died from a mix of the drug (which is prescribed to treat ADHD) and alcohol. The medical examiner has discounted that notion, calling the very low levels of Adderall in the victim’s blood “within therapeutic range.” The cause of her death rather seems to have been a blunt force trauma to the head. The idea that ADHD drugs might be killing us—and in ways that resemble being bashed in the head—represents just one of several ominous storylines associated with the disorder. In recent years, we’ve also heard speculation about whether ADHD is real, and if it is real, whether it’s being grossly overdiagnosed. And then there are the drugs. A recent opinion piece in the New York Times by psychology professor L. Alan Sroufe argues at great length that attention-deficit drugs do more harm than good over the long term, a conclusion other professionals in his field dispute. The backlash against ADHD—which often targets the drugs used to treat it, the people who have it, and the therapists and parents who make treatment decisions—has again reached a fever pitch. These backlashes against childhood developmental diagnoses seems to rise and fall every few years, but lately it’s burgeoning. © 2012 Scientific American

Keyword: ADHD; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 16432 - Posted: 02.25.2012