By James Gallagher Health reporter, BBC News The ability to breathe has been restored to mice with spinal cord injuries, in what US researchers describe as a medical first. Some patients with damaged spinal cords need ventilators as they are unable to breathe on their own. A report in the journal Nature showed a nerve graft, coupled with a protein, could restore breathing. Human trials could begin soon, which the charity Spinal Research said could be "potentially life-changing". Damage at the top of the spinal cord, around the neck, can interrupt messages to the diaphragm - a layer of muscle involved in breathing. The cord is notoriously resistant to repair. Techniques such as nerve grafts, which worked in the arms and legs, had shown limited success with the spinal cord, doctors at the Case Western Reserve University said. The spinal cord scars after it is damaged, and molecules - chondroitin sulphate proteoglycans - prevent nerves repairing and forming new connections. The researchers used a nerve graft to form a bridge across the scar at the same time as injecting an enzyme - chondoitinase ABC - which attacked the inhibitory molecules. BBC © 2011

Keyword: Regeneration
Link ID: 15552 - Posted: 07.14.2011

NEW YORK — Children exposed to secondhand smoke at home may be more likely than their peers to have learning and behavioral problems, according to a new study. Researchers found that of more than 55,000 U.S. children younger than 12 years, six percent lived with a smoker. And those kids were more likely to have attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a learning disability or "conduct disorder" than children in smoke-free homes. Even after accounting for a number of possible explanations -- like parents' incomes and education levels -- secondhand smoke was still tied to a higher risk of behavioral problems, said Hillel R. Alpert of the Harvard School of Public Health, one of the researchers on the work. Still, the findings don't prove a smoke-filled home is to blame, said Alpert, because other factors the study didn't look at could be at play. For instance, children exposed to secondhand smoke are often exposed to smoke while they are still in the womb. And mothers' smoking during pregnancy has been linked to increased risks of learning and behavioral problems. Alpert's team, whose results appear in the journal Pediatrics, had no information on mothers' smoking during pregnancy. It's also possible that parents who smoke have, themselves, a greater history of learning or behavior problems compared with non-smoking parents. Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters.

Keyword: ADHD; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 15551 - Posted: 07.14.2011

by Virginia Morell Parrots are talkative birds, with impressive, humanlike linguistic abilities. Also like us, male and female parrots are lifelong vocal learners. Because of these similarities, researchers have long wondered whether parrot chicks learn their first calls or if these sounds are innate. For the first time, scientists have succeeded in studying the calls of parrot chicks in the wild. They find that the birds do learn their first calls—and from their parents, much as human infants do. The findings suggest that parrots may be better than songbirds as models for studying how humans acquire speech. Like other parrot species, green-rumped parrotlets (Forpus passerinus), a parakeet-sized species that lives in South America, make what scientists term a signature contact call, a sound that functions much like a name. The birds use it to find and recognize mates and identify their chicks. Other studies have shown that wild parrots often imitate one another's contact calls—rather like someone calling out the name of a friend. "One study of another species of captive parrotlets suggested that individual birds are assigned names by their family members," says ornithologist Karl Berg of Cornell University. But he wanted to know whether the birds do this in the wild, too, and why. Captive studies cannot, by themselves, explain what function such behaviors serve in nature or how they evolved. But studying parrots in the wild is "extremely difficult" because they generally nest in hollows high in trees, says behavioral ecologist Timothy Wright of New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, an expert on wild parrots. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Language; Animal Communication
Link ID: 15550 - Posted: 07.14.2011

By DAVID DANELSKI Feeling a bit slow and depressed? It just might be the Inland area's foul air. Neuroscientists at Ohio State University have linked fine-particle air pollution to slow thinking, bad memory and depressive-like behaviors in mice. The exposed animals also were found to have abnormal brain cells, inhibiting the flow of electrical impulses that transmit information. The research appears to break new ground on what's known about the health effects of air pollution. Most of the hundreds of past studies have focused on how bad air impairs respiratory or cardiac health and on how death rates increase on polluted days. Research done on rats at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles suggests that several genes associated with common brain tumors and degenerative brain diseases are more active in rats exposed to freeway pollution. The Ohio State research team, however, wanted to know how the pollution affects mental health. They took samples of ambient air in Columbus, Ohio, and concentrated it seven times. Groups of mice breathed the air six hours a day, five days a week for 10 months. The air was five times worse than the average for Mira Loma, a community in northwest Riverside County that has among the worst fine-particle pollution in the nation. When run through memory and learning tests, the exposed mice couldn't think as well as those supplied with clean, filtered air. © 2011 Enterprise Media

Keyword: Depression; Neurotoxins
Link ID: 15549 - Posted: 07.14.2011

By TARA PARKER-POPE “Bet you can’t eat just one” (as the old potato-chip commercials had it) is, of course, a bet most of us end up losing. But why? Is it simple lack of willpower that makes fatty snacks irresistible, or are deeper biological forces at work? Some intriguing new research suggests the latter. Scientists in California and Italy reported last week that in rats given fatty foods, the body immediately began to release natural marijuanalike chemicals in the gut that kept them craving more. The findings are among several recent studies that add new complexity to the obesity debate, suggesting that certain foods set off powerful chemical reactions in the body and the brain. Yes, it’s still true that people gain weight because they eat more calories than they burn. But those compulsions may stem from biological systems over which the individual has no control. “I do think some people come into the world, and they are more responsive to food,” said Susan Carnell, a research associate at the Columbia University Institute of Human Nutrition. “I think there are many different routes to obesity.” In the recent rat studies, by a team from the University of California, Irvine, and the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa, the goal was to measure how taste alone affects the body’s response to food. Among rats given liquid diets high in fat, sugar or protein, the ones who got the fatty liquid had a striking reaction: As soon as it hit their taste buds, their digestive systems began producing endocannabinoids, chemicals similar to those produced by marijuana use. © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 15548 - Posted: 07.12.2011

By KAY E. HOLEKAMP We had just started our afternoon “obs” a few days ago when we found three adult hyenas, all high-ranking females, sleeping on an open hillside. Then we saw something they hadn’t yet noticed: a very large male African cape buffalo that appeared to be dying. We could see from his worn teeth that he was very old, and though he could move his legs, he couldn’t seem to lift his head. One thing about studying large carnivores is that feeding can be difficult to watch. Although hyenas quickly kill smaller prey like gazelle by crushing the neck or skull, they tend to take down larger animals by disembowelment, letting their target bleed out, but that can take some time. We always hope the prey animal is in shock while this is happening, as there would be nothing we could do to speed up the prey animal’s death in any case. As the poet Tennyson put it, nature really is “red in tooth and claw.” Eventually the three females got up from their nap and noticed the buffalo. They were silent as they approached it, avoiding its flailing limbs as they began to tear off pieces of flesh with their sharp teeth. When the dying animal bellowed in pain, its herd-mates rushed over and charged the hyenas, which scattered but then approached again to continue feeding. Still the hyenas were silent, suggesting either that they needed no help to subdue the prey or that they preferred not to share it with their clan mates. However, as often happens, other hyenas apparently heard the cries of the dying buffalo, and started appearing from all directions. The arriving clan members were all very excited to see roughly 1,500 pounds of fresh food already brought to ground! It was not until cubs that had recently graduated from the communal den began arriving at this kill site that we started to hear hyena voices. As each youngster arrived at the scene, it was clearly overwhelmed with excitement and nervousness. This could easily be seen in their body postures, their bristled tails and most of all in their voices. They grinned and groveled before their larger clan mates, and produced many loud “whoop” vocalizations. © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Animal Communication; Language
Link ID: 15547 - Posted: 07.12.2011

By PAULA SPAN Five years have passed since the Food and Drug Administration approved a vaccine against shingles. By now, experts had expected a substantial proportion of people older than 60, the most vulnerable population, to be protected from outbreaks of this nasty viral disease and the persistent, debilitating pain it can leave behind. Indeed, the vaccine, called Zostavax, could so sharply reduce the number of adults who suffer from shingles — currently more than one million a year — that in March, the Food and Drug Administration approved its use by those ages 50 and older. But even with this weapon at the ready, the campaign against shingles has bogged down. Some experts say it never really got under way. A combination of factors has dissuaded many physicians’ offices and clinics from carrying Zostavax. And its manufacturer, Merck, has been unable to produce sufficient quantities to meet even modest demand. Intermittent shortages that last months have kept the company from consistently marketing the vaccine and have forestalled public health campaigns that could have built awareness of the need for it. “It really, really has been frustrating,” said Dr. Rafael Harpaz, an epidemiologist at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “There hasn’t been a single year since the vaccine was licensed in 2006 that there’s been no problem with supply.” © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 15546 - Posted: 07.12.2011

By Bill Briggs This is about to get ugly. Aussie researchers have invented what may be described as reverse beer goggles. As seen in the accompanying video -- which has topped a million views since the study team posted it on YouTube on Thursday -- female faces seem to morph into cartoonish monsters when viewed rapidly. (Strangely, Joan Rivers is not included in the sample.) Now ladies and gentlemen, especially you desperate singles lingering in the bars at closing time, please hold your boos, and refrain from declaring this discovery a giant leap backward for science. Believe it or not, the gnarly optical illusion has a practical purpose, says Matthew B. Thompson, one of the authors of a just-published paper on the effect. “We want to understand how people recognize and identify complex patterns. We have lots of experience with faces and process them effortlessly,” says Thompson, a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland. “In our lab, we use strange effects like this one to help us understand how people perceive faces -- for example, what makes someone attractive or easy to recognize.” But why do our eyes and brains start to interpret these mugs as repugnant? Let’s face it: Some seem to be minus-3s on the globally recognized Dude Scale of 1 to 10. Answering that very question is the next task for Thompson and his University of Queensland colleges -- lecturer Jason Tangen and researcher Sean Murphy. © 2011 msnbc.com

Keyword: Vision; Attention
Link ID: 15545 - Posted: 07.12.2011

Researchers have long known that dopamine, a brain chemical that plays important roles in the control of normal movement, and in pleasure, reward and motivation, also plays a central role in substance abuse and addiction. In a new study conducted in animals, scientists found that a specific dopamine receptor, called D2, on dopamine-containing neurons controls an organism's activity level and contributes to motivation for reward-seeking as well as the rewarding effects of cocaine. "Research in humans and other species has shown that increased vulnerability to drug addiction correlates with reduced availability of D2 dopamine receptors in a brain region called the striatum," explains study coauthor David M. Lovinger, Ph.D., chief of NIAAA's Laboratory for Integrative Neuroscience. "Furthermore, healthy non-drug-abusing humans that have low levels of the D2 dopamine receptor report more pleasant experiences when taking drugs of abuse." Efforts to investigate dopamine's role in addiction and normal biological processes have been complicated by the fact that the nervous system contains multiple kinds of receptor molecules for dopamine as well as different types of nerve cells that use dopamine. In the current study, scientists in Dr. Lovinger's lab worked with Argentinean researchers led by senior author Marcelo Rubinstein, Ph.D., to develop genetically engineered mice in which expression of D2 receptors was selectively prevented in nerve cells that use dopamine as their neurotransmitter. These nerve cells are present in the midbrain region and connect to other neurons in the striatum. The receptors normally present on these cells are known as D2 autoreceptors.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 15544 - Posted: 07.12.2011

By Tina Hesman Saey A study of twins in California downgrades the role genes play in autism, but the work doesn’t hold water with some autism researchers. Previous studies indicated that autism spectrum disorders are due mainly to genes. But the new study suggests that environment — including conditions in the womb, age of parents and other factors — may account for a greater fraction of the risk of developing autism spectrum disorders. Other studies estimated genetic heritability of autism to be as high as 90 percent, meaning that genetic factors account for the vast majority of variables contributing to the development of autism. But the new study suggests that genetic heritability accounts for just 37 percent of variation in risk of classical autism and 38 percent of other autism spectrum disorders, such as Asperger syndrome. Shared environmental factors are responsible for 55 percent of autism and 58 percent of autism spectrum disorders, researchers report online July 4 in the Archives of General Psychiatry. “People are, more and more, recognizing that autism is a complex disorder that would be hard to explain with genes alone,” says study coauthor Joachim Hallmayer, a psychiatric geneticist at Stanford University. But some researchers question whether the new estimates accurately reflect the contributions of genes and environment to autism. “When somebody gets a totally different answer from what anyone else has seen, you need to see it a few more times before you believe it,” says Susan Folstein, a child psychiatrist at the University of Miami whose 1977 twin study found that autism has a large genetic component. Before that study, autism was often blamed on bad parenting and cold, withdrawn “refrigerator mothers.” Folstein fears that the new study will cause a resurgence in that attitude. “We just lost the battle again. It’s all the mother’s fault,” she says. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2011

Keyword: Autism; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 15543 - Posted: 07.09.2011

By Bruce Bower Panzee doesn’t talk, but she knows a word when she hears one — even if it’s emitted by a computer with a synthetic speech impediment. That’s not too shabby for a chimpanzee. Raised to recognize 128 spoken words by pointing to corresponding symbols, Panzee perceives acoustically distorted words about as well as people do, say psychology graduate student Lisa Heimbauer of Georgia State University in Atlanta and her colleagues. Panzee thus challenges the argument that only people can recognize highly distorted words, thanks to brains tuned to speech sounds and steeped in chatter, the scientists contend in a paper published online June 30 in Current Biology. “Auditory processing abilities that already existed in a common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans may have been sufficient to perceive speech,” Heimbauer says. Panzee’s immersion in talk began in infancy and fueled her word-detection skills, much as occurs in people, Heimbauer suggests. Originally, the researchers thought that Panzee would need training to grasp the word task, since she had never heard artificially distorted words. But after hearing only one such word, the chimp identified the next four synthetically distorted words before making a mistake. “What were supposed to be training sessions became test sessions,” Heimbauer says. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2011

Keyword: Language; Evolution
Link ID: 15542 - Posted: 07.09.2011

By Rachel Ehrenberg Eating fatty foods may give you the munchies. A new study shows that when rats taste fat, it stimulates the same cellular buttons triggered by the active ingredient in marijuana, telling the body to keep on eating. Uncovering the events that lead to this molecular “eat, eat” missive will make it easier to develop drugs that curb binge eating and other weight related-problems, says pharmacologist Daniele Piomelli, who led the new work. Piomelli and his colleagues were interested in compounds known as endocannabinoids — the body’s version of the active ingredient in marijuana — and the role they play in overeating. Several kinds of endocannabinoids are released in the brain and body, but researchers are still discovering the nitty-gritty of where and when these compounds regulate mood and behavior. So the researchers fed rats one of four liquid diets: fat (in the form of corn oil), protein, sugar or a nutrition shake combination of fat, protein and sugar. To ensure that the body’s digestive signals wouldn’t interfere with the experiments, a surgically implanted valve in the rats’ upper stomach drained the food once eaten. Then the team measured endocannabinoid activity in the brain and other tissues. Compared with rats eating sugar or protein alone, rats on the fat diet had a surge of endocannabinoid activity in their gut, the team reported online July 5 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And these rats wouldn’t stop slurping their corn oil. When given a compound that blocked the cellular buttons that the endocannabinoids typically hit, the fat-eating rats immediately stopped eating. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2011

Keyword: Obesity; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 15541 - Posted: 07.09.2011

By Hal Arkowitz and Scott O. Lilienfeld Earlier this year a 22-year-old college dropout, Jared Lee Loughner, shot Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords through the head near a Tucson supermarket, causing significant damage to Giffords’s brain. In the same shooting spree, Loughner killed or wounded 18 others, including a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl. Information from Loughner’s postings on YouTube and elsewhere online suggests that he is severely mentally ill. Individuals with serious mental illnesses have perpetrated other recent shoot-ings, including the massacre in 2007 at ­Virginia Tech in which a college senior, ­Seung-Hui Cho, killed 32 people and wounded 17. These events and the accompanying media coverage have probably fed the public’s perception that most profoundly mentally ill people are violent. Surveys show that 60 to 80 percent of the public believes that those diagnosed with schizophrenia, in particular, are likely to commit violent acts. Although studies have pointed to a slight increase in the risk of violent behaviors among those afflicted with major psychiatric ailments, a closer examination of the research suggests that these disorders are not strong predictors of aggressive behavior. In reality, severely mentally ill people account for only 3 to 5 percent of violent crimes in the general population. The data indicate that other behaviors are likely to be better harbingers of physical aggression—an insight that may help us prevent outbursts of rage in the future. Not all psychological and emotional disorders portend violence, even in society’s eyes. In this column, we refer only to severe mental illness—meaning schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or psychotic depression. Symptoms of schizophrenia include marked disturbances in thoughts, emotions and behaviors; delusions (fixed false beliefs); hallucinations (perceiving things that are not physically present); disorganization; and withdrawal from social activities. Bipolar disorder is usually characterized by swings between depression and mania, which involves euphoria and grandiosity, a boost in energy and less need for sleep. Psychotic depression includes acute depressive symptoms, along with delusions or hallucinations, or both. © 2011 Scientific American,

Keyword: Aggression; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 15540 - Posted: 07.09.2011

by Rebecca Kessler While exploring Australia's Great Barrier Reef, professional diver Scott Gardner heard an odd cracking sound and swam over to investigate. What he found was a footlong blackspot tuskfish (Choerodon schoenleinii) holding a clam in its mouth and whacking it against a rock. Soon the shell gave way, and the fish gobbled up the bivalve, spat out the shell fragments, and swam off. Fortunately, Gardner had a camera handy and snapped what seem to be the first photographs of a wild fish using a tool. Tool use, once thought to be the distinctive hallmark of human intelligence, has been identified in a wide variety of animals in recent decades. Although other creatures don't have anything quite like a circular saw or a juice machine, capuchin monkeys select "hammer" rocks of an appropriate material and weight to crack open seeds, fruits, or nuts on larger "anvil" rocks, and New Caledonian crows probe branches with grass, twigs, and leaf strips to extract insects. In addition to primates and birds, many animals, including dolphins, elephants, naked mole rats, and even octopuses, have shown forms of the behavior. Tool-using fish have been few and far between, however, particularly in the wild. Archerfish target jets of water at terrestrial prey, but whether this constitutes tool use has been contentious. There have also been a handful of reports of fish cracking open hard-shelled prey, such as bivalves and sea urchins, by banging them on rocks or coral, but there's no photo or video evidence to back it up, according to Culum Brown, a behavioral ecologist at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and a co-author of the present paper, to be published in a forthcoming issue of Coral Reefs. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 15539 - Posted: 07.09.2011

by Daniel Strain A protein in the brain that has been linked to the development of human language may push developing neurons to reach out and touch someone—or, at least, other brain cells, according to a new study. Such early links could organize the cell-to-cell connections critical for learning complex tasks later in life, including reciting Dr. Seuss, researchers say. Researchers first identified the FOXP2 gene and its protein in 2001. The study involved a family that had difficulty pronouncing and understanding words, and since then scientists have suspected that the gene may have played a role in the evolution of human language. It even appears to be important to "speech" in other animals: zebra finches with low levels of the FOXP2 protein, for example, can't learn the songs that other birds sing. Most studies of FOXP2 have focused on its effects post-birth, says Simon Fisher, a neurogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, Netherlands. So scientists have been unclear about its role in very early brain building. To tease this out, Fisher and colleagues turned to embryonic mice. The team screened thousands of known genes in whole mice brains, looking for those switched on or off by the FOXP2 protein. In brain tissue bathed in high concentrations of FOXP2, the protein kicked about 160 genes into gear. Another 180 genes in these cells slowed down protein production. All of this suggests that FOXP2 is a "hub in a network of genes which might be important," Fisher says. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Language; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 15538 - Posted: 07.09.2011

by Kat McGowan The woman in the wheelchair wearing burgundy scrubs is lovely, with full eyebrows arching over her closed eyes. Joseph Giacino, director of rehabilitation neuro­psychology at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston, squats beside her, looking into her face. “Hi, Kellie, it’s Dr. Giacino. How are you? Can you open your eyes?” No response. Two and a half months ago, during what was supposed to be a simple nasal operation for sinusitis, Kellie’s left carotid artery was accidentally sliced open, starving half her brain of blood and oxygen. Since that day, she has not spoken or clearly responded in any way. She opens her eyes, and sometimes she groans or gropes toward people nearby. Most of the time she seems to be asleep. Is Kellie still in there? Giacino, 52, an expert in disorders of consciousness, will establish her condition more precisely with this exam. First, though, he needs Kellie to be more alert. He rubs her arm and her leg firmly, applying deep-muscle pressure, and her dark eyes pop open. She begins to breathe heavily and to shake. Giacino soothes her. “I’m just waking you up,” he says gently. “You had some bleeding in your brain, and we’re trying to help you get better.” The expression on her face is intense and hard to read. It mixes fear with annoyance, as if she has just woken from a nightmare. “Every kid has a dad and a…” he prompts. She moans, or is she trying to say “mom”? It is difficult to tell whether she is oblivious or struggling to respond. When she makes eye contact and holds it, she seems just as aware as anyone else in the room. By her fierce expression, she looks as if she is about to tell Giacino to buzz off. Yet she does not speak. That is why this exam, calibrated to distinguish between reflexes and real cognition, is so important. When Giacino hands her a toy ball, she grabs it, smoothly and naturally. It is a good sign. Copyright © 2011, Kalmbach Publishing Co.

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 15537 - Posted: 07.07.2011

by Andy Coghlan People with Parkinson's disease might one day be treated with brain cells made from their own skin. Two teams of researchers have independently worked out how to turn skin cells into specialised neurons that make dopamine. This neurotransmitter, which is vital for mobility, is depleted in the brains of people with Parkinson's. The studies raise the possibility of improving mobility in people with Parkinson's by restoring dopamine production to normal. At present, most patients take a drug called L-dopa to readjust levels, but with varying levels of success. Both techniques avoid the initial step of converting skin cells into embryo-like pluripotent cells – a technique which poses a possible cancer risk. Vania Broccoli of the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan, and colleagues, first reprogrammed mouse skin cells using three transcription factors – proteins previously linked with the development of the neurons. The same trio of factors transformed skin cells taken from human embryos, healthy adults and people with Parkinson's. The only drawback is that Broccoli's team first had to infect the skin cells with viruses carrying genes to make the transcription factors, although the viruses used are not ones that might disrupt DNA and cause cancer. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Parkinsons; Stem Cells
Link ID: 15536 - Posted: 07.07.2011

by Duncan Graham-Rowe The latest brain-computer interfaces meet smart home technology and virtual gaming TWO friends meet in a bar in the online environment Second Life to chat about their latest tweets and favourite TV shows. Nothing unusual in that - except that both of them have Lou Gehrig's disease, otherwise known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and it has left them so severely paralysed that they can only move their eyes. These Second Lifers are just two of more than 50 severely disabled people who have been trying out a sophisticated new brain-computer interface (BCI). Second Life has been controlled using BCIs before, but only to a very rudimentary level. The new interface, developed by medical engineering company G.Tec of Schiedlberg, Austria, lets users freely explore Second Life's virtual world and control their avatar within it. It can be used to give people control over their real-world environment too: opening and closing doors, controlling the TV, lights, thermostat and intercom, answering the phone, or even publishing Twitter posts. The system was developed as part of a pan-European project called Smart Homes for All, and is the first time the latest BCI technology has been combined with smart-home technology and online gaming. It uses electroencephalograph (EEG) caps to pick up brain signals, which it translates into commands that are relayed to controllers in the building, or to navigate and communicate within Second Life and Twitter. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 15535 - Posted: 07.07.2011

By Linda Carroll What finally washed away Kari Adams’s denial was the flood of tears streaming down her dad’s face. Frightened by Kari’s plunging weight, her family had been begging the 41-year-old mother of two to seek help for months. But nobody could convince Kari that anything was wrong – until she saw her dad’s tears. “That’s when it hit me,” she said. “He never cried before in my whole life.” Kari’s story echoes that of many other middle-aged women in America. Major transitions and traumatic mid-life events — crumbling marriages, job losses or kids going off to college — can rekindle eating disorders that had begun years before. “It’s rare that an eating disorder shows up completely out of the blue in mid-life,” said Douglas Bunnell, vice president and director of out-patient clinical services at The Renfrew Center, where Kari eventually sought help. The more common scenario, Bunnell said, is the resurgence of a life-long problem. Eating disorder experts are seeing more and more patients like Kari these days. The Renfrew Center has seen a 42 percent increase in the number of women over the age of 35 seeking help. That’s prompted the center to come up with a special program geared to their older patients. Therapists focus on stressors that trigger eating disorders in adults and on the underlying issues inflaming the problem, such as anxiety. “For these people, there’s something soothing about not eating,” Bunnell said. “The eating disorder has become embedded in the way they manage anxiety.” © 2011 MSNBC Interactive

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 15534 - Posted: 07.07.2011

A chemical in the body that triggers pain from sunburn has been pinpointed by UK experts in a discovery that could lead to new painkillers. Scientists hope one day to be able to knock out the substance with drugs, helping people who suffer from chronic pain. Tests on volunteers showed CXCL5, as it is called, is produced when skin is burnt by UV rays from the sun. The research is published in the journal Science Translational Medicine. Exposure to ultraviolet light from sunlight causes premature skin ageing, cancer and other skin changes. UVB affects the outer layer of skin, and is the main agent responsible for sunburn. In the study, scientists at King's College London exposed small patches of the 10 volunteers' skin to UVB. Areas of sunburn were produced which became increasingly tender over a few days. The scientists took small samples of sunburnt skin and screened them for hundreds of known pain molecules. They discovered unusually high levels of CXCL5. BBC © 2011

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 15533 - Posted: 07.07.2011