By David Biello Banned for indoor use since 2001, the effects of the common insecticide known as chlorpyrifos can still be found in the brains of young children now approaching puberty. A new study used magnetic imaging to reveal that those children exposed to chlorpyrifos in the womb had persistent changes in their brains throughout childhood. The brains of 20 children exposed to higher levels of chlorpyrifos in their mother’s blood (as measured by serum from the umbilical cord) “looked different” compared to those exposed to lower levels of the chemical, says epidemiologist Virginia Rauh of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, who led the research published online by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on April 30. “During brain development some type of disturbance took place.” The 6 young boys and 14 little girls, whose mothers were exposed to chlorpyrifos when it was used indoors to control pests prior to the ban, ranged in age from seven to nearly 10. All came from Dominican or African American families in the New York City region. Compared to 20 children from the same kinds of New York families who had relatively low levels of chlorpyrifos in umbilical cord blood, the 20 higher dose kids had protuberances in some regions of the cerebral cortex and thinning in other regions. “There were measurable volumetric changes in the cerebral cortex,” Rauh notes. Though the study did not map specific disorders associated with any of these brain changes, the regions affected are associated with functions like attention, decision-making, language, impulse control and working memory. The “structural anomalies in the brain could be a mechanism, or explain why we found cognitive deficits in children” in previous studies, Rauh notes. © 2012 Scientific American

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Neurotoxins
Link ID: 16737 - Posted: 05.02.2012

John von Radowitz Slackers may have brains that are wired for under-achievement, a study suggests. Scientists have identified neural pathways that appear to influence an individual's willingness to work hard to earn money. Scans showed differences between "go-getters" and "slackers" in three specific areas of the brain. People prepared to work hard for rewards had more of the nerve-signalling chemical dopamine in two brain regions called the striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Both are known to play an important role in behaviour-changing reward sensations and motivation. But "slackers", who were less willing to work hard for reward, had higher dopamine levels in the anterior insula. This is a brain region involved in emotion and risk perception. Dopamine is a "neurotransmitter" that helps nerves "talk" to each other by sending chemical signals across connection points called synapses. Psychologist Michael Treadway, from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, US, who co-led the research, said: "Past studies in rats have shown that dopamine is crucial for reward motivation. But this study provides new information about how dopamine determines individual differences in the behaviour of human reward-seekers." The findings are reported in the latest issue of the Journal of Neurosciences. © independent.co.uk

Keyword: Attention; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 16736 - Posted: 05.02.2012

At two years, Avastin (bevacizumab) and Lucentis (ranibizumab injection), two widely used drugs to treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD), improve vision when administered monthly or on an as needed basis, although greater improvements in vision were seen with monthly administration for this common, debilitating eye disease, according to researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health. Of the two drugs, Avastin is most frequently used to treat AMD.However, prior to the Comparison of AMD Treatments Trials (CATT), a two-year clinical trial, the two drugs had never been compared head-to-head. Second year results were published today in the journal Ophthalmology. First year results were published in the May 19, 2011 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. AMD is the leading cause of vision loss and blindness in older Americans. In its advanced stages, the wet form of AMD spurs the growth of abnormal blood vessels, which leak fluid and blood into the macula and obscure vision. The macula is the central portion of the retina that allows us to look straight ahead and to perceive fine visual detail. Accumulation of fluid and blood damages the macula, causing loss of central vision, which can severely impede mobility and independence. Without treatment, most patients become unable to drive, read, recognize faces or perform tasks that require hand-eye coordination. Avastin and Lucentis block growth of abnormal blood vessels and leakage of fluid from the vessels.

Keyword: Vision; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 16735 - Posted: 05.01.2012

By NATALIE ANGIER CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Seated in a cheerfully cramped monitoring room at the Harvard University Laboratory for Developmental Studies, Elizabeth S. Spelke, a professor of psychology and a pre-eminent researcher of the basic ingredient list from which all human knowledge is constructed, looked on expectantly as her students prepared a boisterous 8-month-old girl with dark curly hair for the onerous task of watching cartoons. The video clips featured simple Keith Haring-type characters jumping, sliding and dancing from one group to another. The researchers’ objective, as with half a dozen similar projects under way in the lab, was to explore what infants understand about social groups and social expectations. Yet even before the recording began, the 15-pound research subject made plain the scope of her social brain. She tracked conversations, stared at newcomers and burned off adult corneas with the brilliance of her smile. Dr. Spelke, who first came to prominence by delineating how infants learn about objects, numbers, the lay of the land, shook her head in self-mocking astonishment. “Why did it take me 30 years to start studying this?” she said. “All this time I’ve been giving infants objects to hold, or spinning them around in a room to see how they navigate, when what they really wanted to do was engage with other people!” © 2012 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 16734 - Posted: 05.01.2012

TIM JOHNSON, Free Press When it comes to unfathomed mysteries, few are more persistent than this one: Just what is it that goes on in the brain of an impulsive, risk-taking teenager? Thirty-two international researchers — including two from the University of Vermont — have managed to shed some light on this question. In a journal article published Sunday, they identify patterns of brain activity that are characteristic of teens who are prone to use drugs or alcohol. What’s new about this study, by a European group called IMAGEN Consortium, is that it reveals distinct neural networks in the adolescent brain in which measurable activity can be linked to various forms of impulsivity — the likelihood of doing something risky. The researchers identified seven networks that were activated when the teenagers successfully controlled impulses; and six networks activated when impulses failed to be controlled. If you’re a worried parent looking for risk-averting strategies, don’t get your hopes up. This study isn’t about to spawn new ways to discourage teen drug and alcohol use — it’s just the the first of an anticipated series of research projects that might hold some promise for that. © 2012 www.burlingtonfreepress.com.

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 16733 - Posted: 05.01.2012

By Rebecca Cheung Unique wings allow one type of male tree cricket to hum a different sort of tune — one that encompasses a wide range of pitches. The discovery could mean that these males are saying a lot more than previously thought, and that potential mates might be listening for these notes. “The frequencies might be carrying some information about the condition of the male. An insect that is able to sing faster, and hence at a higher frequency, might actually be quite well fed, or he’s in a nice warm place you might want to be in,” says Natasha Mhatre of the University of Bristol in England. “You now have to ask: ‘What kind of information is that frequency carrying?’” Crickets produce sound by rubbing their wings together. For most crickets — including field and bush crickets — males can produce only one musical note. Generally, the pitch of the male’s song is directly related to his size. Researchers believe that when females scout for a potential mate, they tend to be drawn to songs of deeper frequency or pitch, which are produced by larger crickets. But certain tree crickets were known to vary their tune. Scientists had observed, for instance, that a species from southern India called Oecanthus henryi produces high-pitch sounds at warmer temperatures. Until now, it wasn’t fully understood how these critters could do this. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2012

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Hearing
Link ID: 16732 - Posted: 05.01.2012

Kat Austen, CultureLab editor Neuroanatomist and stroke survivor Jill Bolte Taylor explains why she hopes her display of cerebral artwork will raise awareness of the brain Why are you opening an outdoor exhibition of giant brains? I care about the brain. I grew up wanting to study it because I have a brother diagnosed with schizophrenia. Then in 1996, when I was a neuroscience researcher at Harvard Medical School, I experienced a rare form of stroke. A few years later, during my recovery, I was in Chicago, and on the streets they had sculptures of these enormous cows painted by individual artists so that every cow was different. I thought, wouldn't it be cool to have brains on public display for art? So for the past 10 years, I've been dreaming about having brains on display. And last year I started a not-for-profit organisation to raise appreciation for and awareness about the human brain. The Brain Extravaganza in Bloomington, Indiana, where I live, is the first project. There are 22 enormous brains - five feet long, five feet high and four feet wide. Every brain is anatomically correct with 12 pairs of cranial nerves, and each is decorated by a different artist using different kinds of media. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 16731 - Posted: 05.01.2012

In his second year of neuroscience grad school, Greg Dunn was moonlighting with a different kind of experiment: blowing ink across pieces of paper. The neuron-like pattern it formed was instantly recognizable to him as a neuroscientist. "Ink spreads because it wants to go in the direction of less resistance, and that's probably also the case of when branches grow or neurons grow," he says. "The reason the technique works really well is because it's directly related to how neurons are actually behaving." Dunn calls this the "fractal solution to the universe," which he sees as the "fundamental beauty of nature." He's fascinated that this branching pattern holds true across orders of magnitude, whether that's nanometers for neurons, centimeters for ink, or meters for a tree branch. Since graduating with his PhD last fall, Dunn has continued to spend his days with neurons--big, golden ones ten thousand times the size of neurons in your brain. The former University of Pennsylvania grad student now creates paintings of neurons for a living. © 2012, Kalmbach Publishing Co.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 16730 - Posted: 05.01.2012

By Maria Konnikova In 1927, Gestalt psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik noticed a funny thing: waiters in a Vienna restaurant could only remember orders that were in progress. As soon as the order was sent out and complete, they seemed to wipe it from memory. Zeigarnik then did what any good psychologist would: she went back to the lab and designed a study. A group of adults and children was given anywhere between 18 and 22 tasks to perform (both physical ones, like making clay figures, and mental ones, like solving puzzles)—only, half of those tasks were interrupted so that they couldn’t be completed. At the end, the subjects remembered the interrupted tasks far better than the completed ones—over two times better, in fact. Zeigarnik ascribed the finding to a state of tension, akin to a cliffhanger ending: your mind wants to know what comes next. It wants to finish. It wants to keep working – and it will keep working even if you tell it to stop. All through those other tasks, it will subconsciously be remembering the ones it never got to complete. Psychologist Arie Kruglanski calls this a Need for Closure, a desire of our minds to end states of uncertainty and resolve unfinished business. This need motivates us to work harder, to work better, and to work to completion. It adds impetus to minds that may otherwise be too busy or oversaturated to bother with the details. In other words, it ensures that those orders will stay in the waiters’ heads until it is certain that your food will hit the table as promised. © 2012 Scientific American

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 16729 - Posted: 05.01.2012

Horrific crimes, such as the Anders Breivik case, illustrate the misconceptions the public has about mental illness, a leading expert says. Professor Simon Wessely, of King's College London, said the simplest responses to mass killings were that the perpetrators "must be mad". But he said the way Breivik carried out the killings suggested otherwise. He said the idea a psychiatric diagnosis could help people avoid punishment was wrong too. Writing in the Lancet medical journal, Professor Wessely said putting forward a mental illness defence in the UK could lead a person to spending more time behind bars than less. "The forensic psychiatry system is not a soft or popular option," he added. The psychiatrist also said the Breivik case highlighted another misconception - that outrageous crimes must mean mental illness. "For schizophrenia to explain Breivik's actions, they would have to be the result of delusions." But he added: "The meticulous way in which he planned his attacks does not speak to the disorganisation of schizophrenia." BBC © 2012

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Aggression
Link ID: 16728 - Posted: 04.30.2012

By Kay Lazar LITTLETON - Marjorie Bontempo was a changed woman after moving into Life Care Center of Nashoba Valley, a Littleton nursing home where the staff doesn’t believe in using antipsychotic drugs simply to calm residents. A physician had prescribed an antipsychotic for Bontempo a year earlier, after Alzheimer’s disease had transformed her from an accomplished seamstress and demure family peacekeeper into a cantankerous, confused woman who refused to eat. The medicine eased her aggression but left her dazed, said her daughter, Patty Sinnett. Nashoba’s nurses took Bontempo off the powerful sedative. Sinnett went to visit soon after and found her mother in the activity room watching a Clark Gable movie. “She started explaining the whole movie to me, like a normal person would,’’ Sinnett said. “It was the first time I had had a conversation with her in a year. It was incredible.’’ The Littleton facility is one of a small but growing number of nursing homes that are treating the agitation and disruptive behavior that often accompany dementia without resorting to antipsychotics. Instead, Life Care Center and similar homes try to tailor care to each resident, to make it familiar and comforting. Staffers comb residents’ pasts to learn their preferences, hobbies, and accomplishments, tapping bedrock emotions that endure long after memory fades. © 2012 NY Times Co

Keyword: Alzheimers; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 16727 - Posted: 04.30.2012

By Deborah Kotz, Globe Staff Most people who suffer regularly from debilitating migraine headaches don’t get the appropriate treatment to prevent them, according to new guidelines issued earlier this week from the American Academy of Neurology. And a disappointing study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that injections of Botulinum toxin A, or Botox, had smaller-than-expected benefits for those with chronic, near-daily headaches, working only modestly better than a placebo. “There are several reasons why patients aren’t being properly treated,” said Dr. Stephen Silberstein, a neurologist at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia who led the guideline committee. “They may be misdiagnosed with tension or sinus headaches or may be using a medication that doesn’t work or is prescribed at too low a dose.” (Five of the six guideline authors, including Silberstein, disclosed that they had previously served on advisory boards or accepted honoraria or consulting fees from manufacturers of drugs used to treat migraines.) Migraines -- which are frequently accompanied by nausea, vomiting, visual disturbances or aura, and sensitivity to light -- affect about 1 in 10 Americans and can be triggered by certain foods, lack of sleep, stress, jet lag, fasting, and hormonal changes during a woman’s menstrual cycle. Nearly 40 percent of migraine sufferers have at least four or five headaches a month, and a smaller percentage have “chronic migraines” defined as having pain at least 15 days a month. Women are also more likely to get them than men. © 2012 NY Times Co.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 16726 - Posted: 04.30.2012

By DENISE GRADY Obesity and the form of diabetes linked to it are taking an even worse toll on America’s youths than medical experts had realized. As obesity rates in children have climbed, so has the incidence of Type 2 diabetes, and a new study adds another worry: the disease progresses more rapidly in children than in adults and is harder to treat. “It’s frightening how severe this metabolic disease is in children,” said Dr. David M. Nathan, an author of the study and director of the diabetes center at Massachusetts General Hospital. “It’s really got a hold on them, and it’s hard to turn around.” Before the 1990s, this form of diabetes was hardly ever seen in children. It is still uncommon, but experts say any increase in such a serious disease is troubling. There were about 3,600 new cases a year from 2002 to 2005, the latest years for which data is available. The research is the first large study of Type 2 diabetes in children, “because this didn’t used to exist,” said Dr. Robin Goland, a member of the research team and co-director of the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. She added, “These are people who are struggling with something that shouldn’t happen in kids who are this young.” Why the disease is so hard to control in children and teenagers is not known. The researchers said that rapid growth and the intense hormonal changes at puberty might play a part. © 2012 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 16725 - Posted: 04.30.2012

By Linda Carroll It sounds like the stuff of nightmares: A man wakes up in the middle of a surgery and can’t speak, or even twitch a muscle. But that’s exactly what a young man from Sweden says happened to him. The 22-year-old Swede was in the middle of surgery for a collapsed lung when he woke up to hear doctors moving around and operating on him, the Swedish newspaper The Local reported. “It was terrible, my worst nightmare,” he told the Sweden’s English-language paper. The operation was in March and the patient, Simon Rosenqvist, recently filed a complaint with Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare, according to a report in the New York Daily News. “My brain kept telling me over and over ‘say your name, say something, do something, wiggle your toes,’ but I was completely incapable of saying something or moving my body at all,’” Rosenqvist wrote in his report. Rosenqvist told The Local that he was awake for some 30 to 35 minutes of the 50 minute procedure and that he was in serious pain and was very angry at the end of the procedure. Experts say that although it’s rare, patients do sometimes wake up during surgeries even when they’ve been given general anesthesia. Overall, this happens in 1 to 2 out of 1,000 procedures, says Dr. Lee A. Fleisher, a professor and chair of anesthesiology and critical care at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. © 2012 msnbc.com

Keyword: Sleep; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 16724 - Posted: 04.30.2012

by Jane J. Lee Companies and health organizations spend millions of dollars on surveys, polls, and focus groups trying to suss out what people will like, buy, or do. But research shows that these techniques aren't all that accurate. Can brain scans do any better? It's possible, according to a new study that finds that a neural activity predicts people's responses to a public service ad about cigarette smoking better than simply asking a focus group. Researchers led by neuroscientist Emily Falk at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Matthew Lieberman, a social neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, focused on the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), located at the front of the brain. Of the many roles its neurons play, scientists were most interested in the ones related to self-reflection, thinking of what you value, and identity. Activity in this region increases when people identify with what they see or try to determine the value of something as it relates to them. A previous study by Falk found that MPFC activity that was recorded while people viewed slides with messages urging regular sunscreen use predicted which individuals were most likely to comply. But Lieberman and Falk wanted to go a step further and see if activity in the MPFC in one group of people could predict the behavior of a much bigger population. They looked at the effectiveness of three ad campaigns aimed at getting smokers to call the National Cancer Institute's quit hotline. The researchers took functional magnetic resonance imaging scans of brain activity in 30 heavy smokers who intended to quit, evenly split between men and women and ranging from 28 to 69 years old, as they watched three ad campaigns. Then scientists asked participants to rank the campaigns according to how effective they thought they'd be for the public. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Attention; Emotions
Link ID: 16723 - Posted: 04.28.2012

By Katherine Harmon It’s always nice to get the full recommended seven or nine hours of sleep every day. But life—and work—often gets in the way. And getting too little sleep can decrease attention and short-term memory and can also alter rational judgment—in addition to increasing the risk for some diseases and making it harder to lose weight. Thus, for those who work in an industry where a simple error can lead to injury or death, missing out on sleep can be seriously dangerous. Moreover, according to a new survey, workers in industries with heavy equipment are among the least likely to be well rested. A study of more than 15,000 employed U.S. adults shows that 30 percent of all workers reported getting fewer than six hours of sleep every day. That’s some 28.3 million workers who are operating (themselves and often machinery) with far less sleep than recommended. The findings were published online April 27 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Night shift workers were, predictably, the most likely to be getting less z’s, with 44 percent—some 2.2 million people—getting fewer than six hours a day. (Trying to sleep during daylight hours can be a challenge because the body’s circadian rhythms are more likely to be sending stay-awake hormonal signals.) Of people who work in transportation and warehousing on overnight shifts, almost 70 percent are getting fewer than six hours of sleep a day. This is of particular concern considering that at least one in five vehicle accidents is the result of a fatigued driver. © 2012 Scientific American

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 16722 - Posted: 04.28.2012

Sandrine Ceurstemont, editor, New Scientist TV Think your eyes can detect if an object is upright? A new illusion by video producer Greg Ross shows that it's not always the case as visual detail can sometimes fool our brain. In this video, a balance beam is filled in with a diagonal pattern. Does it seem to be skewed? Keep watching as the lines are slowly removed. Do you notice a difference when the drawing is white? The balance beam should look tilted when it's covered with lines but upright when they are erased. However, measuring the distance between the blocks would prove that the top and bottom are parallel in both cases. According to Ross, the effect is due to the opposing direction of diagonal lines in each rectangle. But the triangle placed on the right side of the top beam accentuates the effect. "We perceive it as weighing down on the right side but only when the diagonal lines are there," says Ross. A similar effect can be observed in other optical illusions, for example radiating lines covering a shape can make it appear to bend. Highlighting the corners of squares on a chessboard can also distort the alignment. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 16721 - Posted: 04.28.2012

By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News Researchers have spotted a group of 53 cells within pigeons' brains that respond to the direction and strength of the Earth's magnetic field. The question of how birds navigate using - among other signals - magnetic fields is the subject of much debate. These new "GPS neurons" seem to show how magnetic information is represented in birds' brains. However, the study reported by Science leaves open the question of how they actually sense the magnetic field. David Dickman of the Baylor College of Medicine in the US set up an experiment in which pigeons were held in place, while the magnetic field around them was varied in its strength and direction. Prof Dickman and his colleague Le-Qing Wu believed that the 53 neurons were candidates for sensors, so they measured the electrical signals from each one as the field was changed. Every neuron had its own characteristic response to the magnetic field, with each giving a sort of 3-D compass reading along the familiar north-south directions as well as pointing directly upward or downward. BBC © 2012

Keyword: Animal Migration
Link ID: 16720 - Posted: 04.28.2012

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR A randomized trial of steroid injections for back pain has shown that they are no more effective than a placebo. Because the long-term benefits of surgery remain unproven and pain medicines often have serious side effects, doctors have increasingly turned to steroid injections to treat lumbosacral radiculopathy, a common cause of back pain. The condition stems from damage to the discs between the vertebrae that often leads to sciatica, numbness or pain in the legs. Researchers tested 84 adults with back pain of less than six months’ duration, dividing them into three groups. They received either steroids, etanercept (an arthritis medicine) or an inactive saline solution in two injections given two weeks apart. At the end of one month, they were assessed for pain. Leg and back pain decreased in all three groups, but there were no statistically significant differences among them. The researchers conclude that steroids may provide some short-term analgesic effect, but that the improvement in all of the patients was mainly due to normal healing. The lead author, Dr. Steven P. Cohen, an associate professor of anesthesiology at Johns Hopkins, was disappointed with the results but said that he still hopes drugs like etanercept might someday be proven effective. But for now, he said, “the strongest evidence for back pain relief is with exercise.” Copyright 2012 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 16719 - Posted: 04.28.2012

By Tina Hesman Saey A new treatment mimics acupuncture’s the pain-blocking mechanism of acupuncture but offers longer-lasting pain relief, at least in mice. Injections of an enzyme called PAP into an acupuncture point behind the knees of mice relieved pain caused by inflammation for up to six days, Julie Hurt and Mark Zylka of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill report online April 23 in Molecular Pain. That’s almost 100 times longer than pain relief from acupuncture, which typically lasts about 1½ hours. Long-lasting pain relief “is truly important, clinically,” says Maiken Nedergaard, a neuroscientist at the University of Rochester in New York. She and colleagues previously demonstrated that inserting and manipulating acupuncture needles causes the body to release a chemical called adenosine. Adenosine acts as a local anesthetic to slow down pain messages sent to the brain, she says. “The beauty of Mark’s study is that it takes advantage of the molecular mechanism of acupuncture and improves upon it,” Nedergaard says. Zylka had already been studying PAP, which stands for prostatic acid phosphatase, when Nedergaard’s research on the release of adenosine during acupuncture was published. The study gave him the idea that boosting adenosine at acupuncture points, which are located where nerves contact muscle, could be a localized way to treat pain. Adenosine lasts only minutes in the human body, so injections of the chemical itself were not an option. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2012

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 16718 - Posted: 04.28.2012