By Melissa Dahl If you're hearing voices in your head, you may want to cut back on the caffeine. A recent Australian study showed a link between heavy coffee consumption, stress -- and auditory hallucinations. Here's what happened: The volunteers listened to white noise played through a computer's headphones for three minutes. Every time they heard even a snippet of Bing Crosby's White Christmas, they were told to press a hand tally counter. (They weren't aware of the real point of the study -- they were told it was about auditory perception.) The song was never played. But the participants who said they were very stressed, and very caffeinated -- those who regularly drank five or more cups per day, at 200 milligrams of caffeine each -- were more likely to imagine they'd heard it. "We believe that high stress, in addition to taking high levels of caffeine, makes people yet more stressed and thus makes them more likely to 'overreact' to the environment -- i.e., to hear things that just aren’t there," explains Simon Crowe, the lead author of the study and a neuroscientist at Australia's La Trobe University, located in Bundoora, Victoria. The report was published in the April issue of the journal Personality and Individual Differences It's worth noting here that there are some limitations to the study: The levels of stress and caffeine consumption were both self-reported by the 92 volunteers who participated in the experiment. And what if, somehow, the caffeine-stressball combo made participants more eager to try to please the researchers -- yes, of course we heard the song! It's lovely, isn't it?! © 2011 msnbc.com

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Hearing
Link ID: 15413 - Posted: 06.11.2011

by Jon Ronson THERE'S a children's picture book in the US called Brandon and the Bipolar Bear. Brandon and his bear sometimes fly into unprovoked rages. Sometimes they're silly and overexcited. A nice doctor tells them they are ill, and gives them medicine that makes them feel much better. The thing is, if Brandon were a real child, he would have just been misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder. Also known as manic depression, this serious condition, involving dramatic mood swings, is increasingly being recorded in American children. And a vast number of them are being medicated for it. The problem is, this apparent epidemic isn't real. "Bipolar emerges from late adolescence," says Ian Goodyer, a professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Cambridge who studies child and adolescent depression. "It is very, very unlikely indeed that you'll find it in children under 7 years." How did this strange, sweeping misdiagnosis come to pass? How did it all start? These were some of the questions I explored when researching The Psychopath Test, my new book about the odder corners of the "madness industry". Freudian slip The answer to the second question turned out to be strikingly simple. It was really all because of one man: Robert Spitzer. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 15412 - Posted: 06.09.2011

by Ferris Jabr Talk about intelligent design: a new polymer-covered electrode has the potential to monitor and deliver drugs to out-of-sync brain cells. If trials in animals are successful, it could one day help people to control epilepsy. Neuroscientists implant microelectrode arrays in brains to eavesdrop on – and sometimes influence – the electrical activity of neurons. Why not chemically influence the brain alongside this electrical manipulation, thought Xinyan Tracy Cui at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and her colleagues. So the team coated microelectrodes with an electrically conductive polypyrrole film. Then they loaded pockets within the film with different drugs and neurotransmitters such as glutamate, GABA and dopamine, and attached the arrays to samples of rat brain tissue. Applying an electrical current to the polymer caused it to change shape and release its drug cargo, which then acted on surrounding cells. Cui is currently working on replicating this demonstration in living rodents. Hits the spot Polypyrrole-coated microelectrode arrays, like ordinary arrays, could not only monitor neurons for unusual electrical activity but also deliver electrical impulses to keep neurons firing at the right tempo, like the brain pacemakers sometimes used to treat epilepsy. With the polypyrrole coating, however, microelectrode arrays could release drugs when they detect unusual activity – such as the haphazard electrical firing that characterises a seizure. Because electrodes reach into specific regions of the brain, the drugs would affect only neighbouring neurons. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Epilepsy
Link ID: 15411 - Posted: 06.09.2011

By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor Scientists developing treatments for the devastating brain disorder Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) have unexpectedly blocked the onset of Alzheimer's disease, the most common cause of dementia. Researchers said they were "thrilled" at the unexpected discovery that two antibodies – extensively studied in relation to CJD – may also have an affect on Alzheimer's disease. Almost 500,000 people a year in the UK and 20 million worldwide suffer from Alzheimer's. The finding, published in Nature Communications, represents a "significant step forward in the battle to develop drugs to treat Alzheimer's disease," they say. The lead came from an American study by researchers at Yale University in 2009, which showed prion proteins causing CJD also play a role in Alzheimer's disease. The finding triggered a race by scientists to discover whether antibodies being developed as a treatment for CJD might also work against Alzheimer's. Now a study on mice at the Medical Research Council Prion Unit at University College London has indicated the antibodies block the damaging effects of a toxic substance called "amyloid beta", a protein which accumulates and becomes attached to the nerve cells in the brain. Over time, through its interaction with prion proteins, amyloid stops the nerve cells from communicating, causing memory loss, the distinctive symptom of Alzheimer's. ©independent.co.uk

Keyword: Alzheimers; Prions
Link ID: 15410 - Posted: 06.09.2011

A woman's cat ears perk up as she passes a young man in a park, only to flatten as she brushes off the encounter. A team of Japanese inventors have come with a new device that blends the country's fascination with cuteness and its penchant for experimental high-tech -- brainwave-controlled cat ears. The fluffy headwear reads users' brain activity, meaning the ears perk up when they concentrate and then flop down again to lay flat against the head when users enter a relaxed state of mind, say its developers. The gizmo is called "Necomimi" -- a play on the Japanese words for cat and ear, but the first two syllables are also short for "neuro communication", says Neurowear, the inventor team whose brainchild it is. "We were exploring new ways of communicating and we thought it would be interesting to use brainwaves," said Neurowear's Kana Nakano. "Because the sensors must be attached to the head, we tried to come up with something cute and catchy." A promotional video shows a young woman's cat ears perk up as she bites into a doughnut and again when she passes a young man in a park, only to flatten as she apparently brushes off the missed encounter, relaxes and smiles. robotic hand © 2011 Discovery Communications, LLC.

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 15409 - Posted: 06.09.2011

By Karen Weintraub, Globe Correspondent Could household chemicals be causing an increase in autism? The evidence isn’t cut and dried, but a coalition of environmental and health advocates said yesterday that it’s suggestive enough for people to worry. Shoppers can’t possibly avoid all potentially dangerous chemicals on their own -- questions have been raised about chemicals found in canned foods, clothing, furniture, cleaning products, pesticides, air pollution, cosmetics, toys and baby items. So, the government must do more to regulate them, the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families group said. “We need chemical policy that protects our most vulnerable citizens,” said Donna Ferullo, director of program research at the Autism Society, a parent advocacy group. The Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition called for an overhaul of the three-decades-old federal law that regulates chemical safety, called the Toxic Substances Control Act. Earlier this year, Senator Frank Lautenberg, D-NJ, introduced legislation to modify the law, though the odds of passing major chemical industry reform in an election year are slim. Chemical industry consultant Neal Langerman said he agrees that it’s time to overhaul the 1976 law -- not because of autism concerns, but because it doesn’t reflect current realities. The law was written, he said, at a time when scientists thought low-level exposure to most chemicals was safe. Now, Langerman said, we realize “we are more sensitive to these low levels than we thought we were.” And we’re also less willing today to believe companies and government when they say -- but don’t prove -- that products are safe. “That’s a significant change in our society,” said Langerman, also an officer with the American Chemical Society, a professional group for chemists. © 2011 NY Times Co.

Keyword: Autism; Neurotoxins
Link ID: 15408 - Posted: 06.09.2011

By Laura Sanders A plethora of genetic changes contributes to autism spectrum disorders, three new studies find. The new genetic data illustrate why researchers have struggled to find a single cause for the baffling suite of developmental and behavioral conditions, and may help point the way to a unifying process underlying them. The studies also begin to explain why autism spectrum disorders are more common in boys than girls. Though the specific genetic changes identified by a trio of papers in the June 9 Neuron account for only 5 to 8 percent of autism cases, what they reveal about the biology of autism may have much wider implications. “I think we’re still scratching the surface,” says Steve Scherer of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, who wasn’t involved in the studies. “But we’re getting there, and I think these are very important papers.” Two of the studies examined DNA samples taken from carefully screened families, a cohort called the Simons Simplex Collection. Each family included two unaffected parents and one high-functioning child diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. For most families, an unaffected sibling was also included. By studying genetic changes in unaffected family members, the researchers could find abnormalities — specifically, duplications and deletions of DNA called copy number variations — that were not passed down from parents but arose spontaneously in the genomes of affected children. “What was surprising is how unique each of the variants is,” says geneticist Huda Zoghbi of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “This really speaks to the immense heterogeneity of autism. We suspected it, but these data show it clearly.” © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2011

Keyword: Autism; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 15407 - Posted: 06.09.2011

By BENEDICT CAREY Like any other high school junior, Wynn Haimer has a few holes in his academic game. Graphs and equations, for instance: He gets the idea, fine — one is a linear representation of the other — but making those conversions is often a headache. Or at least it was. For about a month now, Wynn, 17, has been practicing at home using an unusual online program that prompts him to match graphs to equations, dozens upon dozens of them, and fast, often before he has time to work out the correct answer. An equation appears on the screen, and below it three graphs (or vice versa, a graph with three equations). He clicks on one and the screen flashes to tell him whether he’s right or wrong and jumps to the next problem. “I’m much better at it,” he said, in a phone interview from his school, New Roads in Santa Monica, Calif. “In the beginning it was difficult, having to work so quickly; but you sort of get used to it, and in the end it’s more intuitive. It becomes more effortless.” For years school curriculums have emphasized top-down instruction, especially for topics like math and science. Learn the rules first — the theorems, the order of operations, Newton’s laws — then make a run at the problem list at the end of the chapter. Yet recent research has found that true experts have something at least as valuable as a mastery of the rules: gut instinct, an instantaneous grasp of the type of problem they’re up against. Like the ballplayer who can “read” pitches early, or the chess master who “sees” the best move, they’ve developed a great eye. © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Intelligence
Link ID: 15406 - Posted: 06.07.2011

By EMMA G. FITZSIMMONS CHICAGO — Martin Mireles says his mother was not happy with his tongue piercing: It didn’t fit his image as a former church youth leader. But as Mr. Mireles told her, it was for research. Paralyzed from a spinal cord injury since he was shot in the neck almost two decades ago, he was recently fitted with a magnetic stud that allows him to steer his wheelchair with his tongue. Now he is helping researchers at the Northwestern University School of Medicine here in a clinical trial of the technology, being financed with almost $1 million in federal stimulus funds. Mr. Mireles, 37, tested the equipment one recent afternoon by guiding a wheelchair through an obstacle course lined with trash cans. Mouth closed, he shifted the magnet to travel forward and backward, left and right. The study was one of about 200 projects selected from more than 20,000 applicants. “There was a ‘wow’ factor here,” said Naomi Kleitman, a program director at the National Institutes of Health and an expert on spinal cord injury research. “This is kind of a cool idea. The question is: Will it work well enough not to just be cool, but to be practical too?” A quarter-million Americans have severe spinal cord injuries, and experts estimate that there are about 10,000 new injuries each year. Millions more have some form of paralysis from an array of conditions, including stroke, multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy. © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 15405 - Posted: 06.07.2011

By Jennifer Viegas The stress and high contact environment of horse shows may cause herpes to become active and contadious among horses, experts say. Equine herpes, a highly contagious infection among horses that can be fatal, may spread when stressed out show horses come together for competitions, according to animal health experts. That appears to have helped fuel the current equine herpes outbreak, which has killed at least 12 horses and sickened 72 others in 10 states so far. These states include Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah and Washington. "Most adult horses are infected with the virus," Philip Johnson, a professor of equine internal medicine at the University of Missouri's College of Veterinary Medicine, told Discovery News. "Like most herpes viruses -- human and animal -- infection leads to a life-long association between the virus and the host. In most healthy horses most of the time, the host's immune system prevents the virus from going active and being especially contagious." Given "the right circumstances," however, he said "the virus can defeat the constraints of the host's immune system and go active." © 2011 Discovery Communications, LLC.

Keyword: Stress; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 15404 - Posted: 06.07.2011

About every 40 seconds, someone in the United States suffers a stroke, and more than 77 percent are first events. Although deaths due to strokes have declined, a stroke — caused by the sudden loss of blood flow to the brain or by bleeding in or around the brain, either of which can cause brain cells to die — can still have a staggering impact upon lives. New guidelines from the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association offer updated advice for preventing a first stroke. Lower your blood pressure High blood pressure damages arteries so they clog or burst more easily, escalating the risks of both types of stroke: ischemic, caused by blockage of a blood vessel that supplies part of the brain; and hemorrhagic, the less common but deadlier stroke that occurs when a blood vessel bursts inside the brain. Treatment to lower blood pressure, including lifestyle changes and medication, can reduce those risks by a third. l  Recommendations: Have your blood pressure checked at least once every two years, more often if you’re 50 or older. If your reading is high-normal — above 120/80 mmHg but below 140/90, the cutoff for hypertension — try to lower it by adopting the lifestyle measures listed below. If your reading is 140/90 or higher, talk with your doctor about adding an antihypertensive drug. Improve cholesterol levels LDL (bad) cholesterol, a fatty substance in the blood, builds up plaque on artery walls, causing arteries to narrow. If plaque ruptures, a blood clot can form and block a blood vessel to the brain, causing a stroke.

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 15403 - Posted: 06.07.2011

by Kai Kupferschmidt The source of a deadly outbreak of Escherichia coli bacteria in Germany remains elusive as German officials today announced that the first tests of samples from a sprouts farm implicated in the outbreak were negative. The German farm had been shut down yesterday by authorities and the region's health minister had advised people not to eat the vegetables. The confusing turn of events comes less than a week after German officials suggested Spanish cucumbers were the source, only to later backtrack. Researchers are now analyzing the genome of the bacterium to understand its evolutionary history and possibly identify its source. Closer analysis of the genome might also offer some clues to how the Shiga toxin made by the bacterium is attacking the brain. This toxin normally targets the kidney, triggering the often fatal development of hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS). Usually neurological symptoms are seen in only a few percent of HUS cases, but in the current outbreak "about half the patients with HUS are developing neurological symptoms," Christian Gerloff, head of the neurology department at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, told ScienceInsider today. Alarm bells started going off when some patients showed problems finding words or giving the date, Gerloff recalls. It quickly became clear that a lot of patients were developing problems reading or doing simple calculations. "Patients were mixing up words and were disoriented. Later they developed muscle twitching and then progressing to epileptic fits," Gerloff says. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Language; Epilepsy
Link ID: 15402 - Posted: 06.07.2011

We spend a third of our lives asleep. Every organism on Earth—from rats to dolphins to fruit flies to microorganisms—relies on sleep for its survival, yet science is still wrestling with a fundamental question: Why does sleep exist? During Shakespeare and Cervantes’ time, sleep was likened to death, with body and mind falling into a deep stillness before resurrecting each new day. In reality, sleep is a flurry of action. Trillions of neurons light up. The endocrine system kicks into overdrive. The bloodstream is flooded with a potent cocktail of critically vital hormones. Such vibrant activity begs the question: Where do we go when we go to sleep? Based on new sleep research, there are tantalizing signposts. Join us in exploring this slumbering journey. We’ll delve into the one-eyed, half-brained sleep of some animals; eavesdrop on dreams to understand their cognitive significance; and investigate extreme and bizarre sleeping behaviors like “sleep sex” and “sleep violence.” Join us in a discussion with leading researchers who delve into the one-eyed, half-brained sleep of some animals, eavesdrop on dreams to understand their cognitive significance, and investigate extreme and bizarre sleeping behaviors such as "sleep sex" and "sleep violence." Moderator: Carl Zimmer Participants: Carlos H. Schenck Marthew Wilson Niels Rattenborg © 2011 Scientific American,

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 15401 - Posted: 06.07.2011

Rowan Hooper, news editor IF YOU like to think of chimps as wise, rational tool-users, gorillas as gentle giants, or bonobos as sexed-up hippie apes, be prepared for a shock. Among African Apes, a collection of field diaries, is primatology given the Tarantino treatment. In the introduction, Martha Robbins of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, emphasises that extreme violence among primates is rare. The incidents described in the book stuck in the biologists' minds because they illustrate how aggression can influence ape society. They stuck in my mind too because, infrequent as they are, these are clearly not random episodes, but key moments in the lives of characters who behave in such familiar ways that we see ourselves in them. In the course of the book we learn about infanticide and violent infighting among silverback gorillas. We get to know Mlima, a gorilla the biologists have been observing almost daily for six years. Through diary entries we are there when they find her dying from wounds inflicted by a younger member of her own species. We also meet Volker, an ambitious young bonobo the researchers have followed for most of his life. Volker has close relations with Amy, a female whose baby the researchers believe he fathered, but the attention he pays her is finally punished: he is savagely beaten by his former friends. The biologists observe Volker's screaming face as he clings to a tree trunk, then never see him again. Josephine Head, also of the Max Planck Institute, describes how she tracked a trail of blood from where chimps had been vocalising loudly the night before, and made a horrible discovery: the spread-eagled body of an adult male chimp, his face battered and bruised, throat torn open and intestines dragged out. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Aggression; Evolution
Link ID: 15400 - Posted: 06.07.2011

by Shaoni Bhattacharya SEEMINGLY random acts of violence by bottlenose dolphins on porpoises could be down to sexual frustration among young males. Cases of the cetaceans killing other creatures for no apparent reason have been reported in UK waters. Now bottlenose dolphins have been seen attacking harbour porpoises in the Pacific Ocean. Crucially, these observations show for the first time that the attackers are young males (Marine Mammal Science, DOI: 10.1111/j.1748-7692.2011.00474.x). Mark Cotter at Okeanis, a non-profit conservation organisation in Moss Landing, California, and colleagues observed three acts of aggression by dolphins on lone porpoises. The dolphins chased the porpoises at high speed, rammed and then drowned them. In one particularly violent attack, three dolphins corralled their victim before seven others joined them to ram the porpoise to death. Cotter found most shocking the fact that two dolphins remained behind to play with the carcass before pushing it towards his boat. "It was almost like they said: 'We're done playing with it, here you go'." Competition for food does not seem to explain the attacks, as the dietary overlap between the two species is small, says Cotter. But the fact that 21 of the 23 attackers were males may be revealing. He believes that the attacks are "object oriented play" during the breeding season by young males who cannot get access to females because of competition from older males. "They are taking out their frustrations," he says. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Aggression; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 15399 - Posted: 06.04.2011

Sandrine Ceurstemont, editor, New Scientist TV It's a summer's day and two flies are buzzing around your head. You may think that their trajectory is obvious but a new animation shows that your brain can be tricked by motion in the background (see video above). Created by Stuart Anstis from the University of California, San Diego, and Clara Casco from the University of Padua, Italy, the video starts with two flies moving in identical circular paths. Next, a rotating scene appears behind them and one of the flies seems to fly in a much larger circle than the other. When the moving background changes again, one fly looks like it's moving up and down while the other heads out to the side and back. Ready for the spoiler? The motion of the flies is actually exactly the same in each clip. So why do the flies' trajectories appear to be distorted when the background is changed? Are there certain aspects of the background movement that contribute to the effect? Let us know why you think our brain is tricked in the Comments section below. The first correct answer will receive some New Scientist goodies: a laptop bag containing a travel mug and a New Scientist book. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 15398 - Posted: 06.04.2011

Liz Else, associate editor Cogito ergo sum - I think, therefore I am - was coined by René Descartes in 1637. He was struggling to find a solid philosophical basis for how we know about reality and truth. This is also turns out to be of the most famous examples of recursion, the process of embedding ideas within ideas that humans seem to do so effortlessly. So effortlessly and so skilfully, in fact, that it's beginning to look like the one true dividing line between animals and humans that may hold up to close scrutiny. That's the hope of Michael Corballis, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. His new book, The Recursive Mind: The origins of human language, thought, and civilization, is a fascinating and well-grounded exposition of the nature and power of recursion. In its ultra-reasonable way, this is quite a revolutionary book because it attacks key notions about language and thought. Most notably, it disputes the idea, argued especially by linguist Noam Chomsky, that thought is fundamentally linguistic - in other words, you need language before you can have thoughts. Chomsky's influential theory of universal grammar has been modified considerably since its origins in the 1960s, but it is still supported by many linguists. Its key idea is that the human mind has evolved an innate capacity for language and that all languages share some universal forms, constrained by the way we think. Corballis reckons instead that the thought processes that made language possible were non-linguistic, but had recursive properties to which language adapted: "Where Chomsky views thought through the lens of language, I prefer to view language though the lens of thought." From this, says Corballis, follows a better understanding of how humans actually think - and a very different perspective on language and its evolution. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 15397 - Posted: 06.04.2011

By Laura Sanders Neuroscientists have confirmed what any kid knows: Third grade changes everything. Compared to kids just out of second grade, recent third-grade graduates use their brains in an entirely different way when solving math problems, a study in an upcoming NeuroImage finds. “I think this is really fascinating,” says cognitive neuroscientist Daniel Ansari of the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada. “Anybody who doesn’t believe that development is important needs to read this paper, because it really shows how dynamically the brain changes as we learn.” Cognitive neuroscientist Vinod Menon of the Stanford University School of Medicine and his colleagues recruited 90 children, aged 7 to 9, who had just completed either second or third grade. The youngsters calculated easy (3 + 1 = 4) or more complex (8 + 5 = 13) addition problems while Menon and his team scanned the children’s brains using functional MRI. Third-graders’ brains behaved very differently than second-graders’, the team found. “It’s not a minor change,” Menon says. “At this point, what’s clear is that the brain and brain function is undergoing major changes.” Overall, second-graders’ brains tackled the easy and hard problems about the same way. Third-graders’ brains responded very differently to the easy and the hard questions. This may reflect a cognitive strategy shift as third-graders grow more adept at handling the easy problems. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2011

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 15396 - Posted: 06.04.2011

Analysis by Marianne English Karen Butler woke up from dental surgery with an accent from a faraway place. After the anesthesia wore off, the Indiana-native-turned-Oregon-resident was perplexed to hear her American English suddenly shift to a hodgepodge of British, Irish and European pronunciations, according to a National Public Radio piece. Considering her speech change temporary, Butler's doctor suggested it would go away after the swelling in her mouth reduced. But the accent stayed well after she recovered. Doctors hypothesize Butler experienced a small stroke while under anesthesia, resulting in her developing foreign accent syndrome (FAS), a neurological disorder that alters the intonation and pitch of a person's speech. To listeners, people with FAS sound like non-natives producing another culture's take on a given language. But evidence suggests the ears of others might make new pronunciations seem more foreign than they really are. In essence, a woman with FAS who seems to speak English in a Scottish accent is unlikely to sound so to linguists. It's also false to assume someone with FAS suddenly knows a foreign language, as the condition has nothing to do with acquiring new languages, but rather modifying existing ones. © 2011 Discovery Communications, LLC

Keyword: Stroke; Language
Link ID: 15395 - Posted: 06.04.2011

Autism blurs the molecular differences that normally distinguish different brain regions, a new study suggests. Among more than 500 genes that are normally expressed at significantly different levels in the front versus the lower middle part of the brain’s outer mantle, or cortex, only 8 showed such differences in brains of people with autism, say researchers funded in part by the National Institutes of Health. "Such blurring of normally differentiated brain tissue suggests strikingly less specialization across these brain areas in people with autism," explained Daniel Geschwind, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of California, Los Angeles, a grantee of the NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health. "It likely reflects a defect in the pattern of early brain development." Graph displaying genetic differences of autism A module of co-expressed genes that code for neurons and their connections tend to be under-expressed in many individuals with autism (red), compared to controls (gray). He and his colleagues published their study online May 26, 2011 in the journal Nature. The research was based on postmortem comparisons of brains of people with the disorder and healthy controls. In fetal development, different mixes of genes turn on in different parts of the brain to create distinct tissues that perform specialized functions. The new study suggests that the pattern regulating this gene expression goes awry in the cortex in autism, impairing key brain functions.

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 15394 - Posted: 06.04.2011