By Tina Hesman Saey Newborn nerve cells may help heal the brain after a traumatic injury. In a study in mice, blocking the birth of new neurons hindered the mice’s ability to learn and remember a water maze after a brain injury, researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas report in the March 30 Journal of Neuroscience. The finding could help settle a debate about what new nerve cells do for the brain and may eventually change the way brain-injured patients are treated. Although scientists have known for a decade that adult brains can make new neurons in two parts of the brain, the role of the newborn cells has not been clear. Some scientists thought that, in adults, neurogenesis, as researchers call the process of generating new nerve cells, may be a leftover from building a new brain during development and has no affect on the adult brain at all. Others have evidence that the new wiring that hooks up new brain cells sometimes gets tangled and may lead to seizures after a brain injury or in epilepsy. Many researchers have suspected that making new cells is good for the brain, but data to definitely settle the claim has been lacking. The new study suggests that newborn neurons made in the hippocampus — an important learning and memory center in the brain — are beneficial, at least in aiding recovery after traumatic brain injuries. “It’s clear they are doing something, and that that something aids recovery,” says Jack Parent, a neurologist and neuroscientist at the University of Michigan Medical Center. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2011

Keyword: Neurogenesis; Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 15155 - Posted: 03.31.2011

The dyes used to colour foods such as cereal, ketchup and snacks may contribute to hyperactivity in some children, a U.S. advisory committee has heard. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration started a two-day meeting Wednesday to weigh data on the link between dyes and the disorder. On Thursday, the panel will recommend whether the regulator should change labelling for food additives, request more study, or do nothing. The FDA has long said the dyes are safe. The U.S. consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest requested the meeting to review research on the effects of additives with the aim of banning Yellow 5, Red 40 and six other dyes. "Dyes are often used to make junk food more attractive to young children or to simulate the presence of a healthful fruit or other natural ingredient," said Michael Jacobson, the group’s director. "Dyes would not be missed in the food supply except by the dye manufacturers." The advocacy group is urging the FDA to put warning labels, noting a full ban would be difficult. Concern about food dyes became prominent in the 1970s when pediatrician Dr. Ben Feingold claimed the colours were linked to hyperactive behaviour and proposed a diet eliminating them. © CBC 2011

Keyword: ADHD
Link ID: 15154 - Posted: 03.31.2011

By Hal Arkowitz and Scott O. Lilienfeld Alcoholics Anonymous, celebrating its 76th anniversary this year, counts two million mem­bers who participate in some 115,000 groups worldwide, about half of them in the U.S. How well does it work? Anthropologist William Madsen, then at the University of California, Santa Barbara, claimed in a 1974 book that it has a “nearly miraculous” success rate, whereas others are far more skeptical. After reviewing the literature, we found that AA may help some people overcome alcoholism, especially if they also get some professional assistance, but the evidence is far from overwhelming, in part because of the nature of the program. Alcoholics Anonymous got its start at a meeting in 1935 in Akron, Ohio, between a businessman named Bill Wilson and a physician, Bob Smith. “Bill W” and “Dr. Bob,” as they are now known, were alcoholics. Wilson had attained sobriety largely through his affiliation with a Christian movement. Smith stopped drinking after he met Wilson, whose success inspired him. Determined to help other problem drinkers, the men soon published what has become known as “The Big Book,” which spelled out their philosophy, principles and methods, including the now famous 12-step method. Alcoholics Anonymous was the book’s official title and also became the name of the organization that grew from it. In AA, members meet in groups to help one another achieve and maintain abstinence from alcohol. The meetings, which are free and open to anyone serious about stopping drinking, may include reading from the Big Book, sharing stories, celebrating members’ sobriety, as well as discussing the 12 steps and themes related to problem drinking. Participants are encouraged to “work” the 12-step program, fully integrating each step into their lives before proceeding to the next. © 2011 Scientific American

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 15153 - Posted: 03.31.2011

By Diane Mapes We all know that smiling faces sometimes tell lies, even without the Motown song there to remind us. But now there’s proof that those fake smiles may not be worth as much as the genuine article. In a study conducted at Bangor University in Wales, researchers had 36 undergrads play a game in which they won money from four opponents, each of whom would indicate the participants’ wins by displaying either a genuine or a polite smile. In a later phase of the game, participants chose which opponent they wanted to play. “The really surprising finding was that they preferred genuinely smiling opponents to politely smiling ones even when the politely smiling ones had a greater chance of paying out,” says psychologist Erin Heerey, lead author of the study. “Our research has found that genuine smiles are worth more to us than polite smiles.” But how can we tell a real smile from a fake one (unless of course, you’re watching an episode of the Real Housewives)? According to Heerey, it’s all in the eyes – or at least the area around the eyes. “The key feature differentiating these types of smiles is the presence of so-called ‘laugh lines,’ the tiny wrinkles that appear at the corners of the eye during smiling,” she says. “These are produced by the action of a muscle called the orbicularis oculi, which rings the eye and contracts when people produce genuine, but not polite smiles.” © 2011 msnbc.com

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 15152 - Posted: 03.31.2011

By Helen Briggs Health reporter, BBC News Children who see flashing lights during a migraine have twice the normal likelihood of having a hole-in-the-heart, a study suggests. US doctors examined 109 children over six who were migraine sufferers. About half of those with a type of migraine accompanied by a visual disturbance called an aura had the heart defect, the Journal of Pediatrics reports. The British Heart Foundation called for further research into the link. Amy Thompson, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: "There could be a number of explanations for this link so further research needs to be carried out before we draw any firm conclusions. "Once we understand the relationship in more detail it could signal an improvement in patient care." A number of medical studies have found a link in adults between a hole-in-the-heart - known technically as a patent foramen ovale (PFO) - and migraine with aura. This has lead to attempts to treat migraine by surgery to close the hole, when other migraine therapies have failed. BBC © MMXI

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 15151 - Posted: 03.31.2011

"Brain scans pinpoint how chocoholics are hooked." This headline appeared in the Guardian a few years ago above a science story that began: "Chocoholics really do have chocolate on the brain." The story went on to describe a study that used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of chocoholics and non-cravers. The study found increased activity in the pleasure centers of the chocoholics' brains, and the Guardian report concluded: "There may also be some truth in calling the love of chocolate an addiction in some people." Really? Is that a fair conclusion to draw from the fMRI data in this study, reported in the European Journal of Neuroscience? Brain stories have become incredibly popular in the news pages in recent years -- and brain imaging stories especially, in part because of the colorful "pictures" that often accompany the data and analysis. But how much can we really conclude from these images? How skeptical should we be, as readers of the science pages in the paper? A growing number of scientists, including neuroscientists themselves, are calling for more caution from scientists, both in reporting and interpreting fMRI data. Among them is University of Illinois neuroscientist Diane Beck, who in a recent article in Perspectives on Psychological Science discussed both the appeal and the pitfalls of popular stories about the brain and behavior. The difficulties of these stories begin with the technology itself, the sheer complexity of which makes accurate reporting a challenge. Despite those colorful images that grab our attention in the news pages, the fMRI is not a photograph -- not even close. © 2011 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 15150 - Posted: 03.31.2011

EAST LANSING, Mich.—When it comes to producing more offspring, larger female hyenas outdo their smaller counterparts. A new study by Michigan State University researchers, which appears in Proceedings of the Royal Society, revealed this as well as defined a new way to measure spotted hyenas’ size. “This is the first study of its kind that provides an estimate of lifetime selection on a large carnivore,” said MSU graduate student Eli Swanson, who published the paper with MSU faculty members Ian Dworkin and Kay Holekamp, all members of the BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action. “In short, we were able to document that larger female hyenas have more cubs over their lifetime than do smaller females as well as develop a novel approach for estimating body size.” Size can be one of the most important traits affecting an animal’s life. It influences eating, getting eaten, speed and agility, and attractiveness to potential mates. However, overall height and weight measurements may not capture differences in more specific traits like leg length that might be more important in survival. To identify the most-important traits, researchers sedated hyenas in Kenya and took 13 measurements on each subject, including total body length, skull size and leg length. They found that while overall size didn’t affect reproductive success, some clusters of traits did. They also learned that the length of the lower leg, the height at the shoulder and body length were all individually associated with more reproductive success. © 2011 U.S.News & World Report LP

Keyword: Evolution; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 15149 - Posted: 03.29.2011

A drug containing the sleep hormone melatonin is to be tested in Scotland to find out if it helps reduce the effects of dementia. Glasgow-based firm, CPS Research, aims to recruit 50 people with Alzheimer's disease for the clinical trial of the drug, Circadin. Alzheimer's patients do not have normal melatonin levels and the study will gauge the effects of adding it. Initial findings suggest it may lead to improved well being during the day. The most common cause of dementia is Alzheimer's disease - which causes the death of brain cells - but other conditions that affect the brain can also cause it. Dr Gordon Crawford, of CPS Research, said: "Dementia is a shattering condition for patients, their families and friends. By reducing the symptoms of the illness, it is hoped that both patients and their carers can enjoy a better quality of life and manage the condition more effectively. "In our groundwork for this project we investigated a slow-release version of the natural compound melatonin. Our findings suggested that the participants functioned better during the day - possibly due to a better quality sleep pattern." BBC © MMXI

Keyword: Alzheimers; Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 15148 - Posted: 03.29.2011

by Andy Coghlan The molecules that fuel thinking and memory have evolved far more in human brains compared with other primates. Philipp Khaitovich of the Partner Institute for Computational Biology in Shanghai, China, and colleagues analysed brain tissue from deceased humans, chimpanzees and rhesus macaques to study the concentrations of 100 chemicals linked with metabolism. In the human prefrontal cortex, the levels of 24 of these were drastically different from levels in the corresponding brain regions of the other primates. In the cerebellum, however, there were far fewer differences between humans and the other animals, with just six chemicals showing different concentrations. This suggests that, since our lineage split off from other primates, the evolution of metabolism in the thinking and learning parts of our brains has gone much further than in our "primitive" cerebellum. Khaitovich says the comparison confirms the key role played in human thought by glutamate, a chemical that energises brain cells and ferries messages between them. It was present at relatively low levels in humans, which he says is because it is used faster in energy-hungry human brains. "Brain metabolism probably played an important role in evolution of human cognition," Khaitovich says, "and one of the potentially most important changes was in glutamate metabolism." © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Evolution; Attention
Link ID: 15147 - Posted: 03.29.2011

By Carolyn Y. Johnson In a small, plain room at the Boston Children’s Museum, scientists are asking deep questions about the foundations of human knowledge — with the help of toddlers and squeaky balls. At the Museum of Science, they are watching children play, gaining insights into how teaching works. Among the lessons: Teaching too much can stifle exploration. Until recently, mystery surrounded the precise ways in which babies and toddlers begin to make sense of the world. But researchers, with clever experiments at these museums and elsewhere, are finding that young children have a surprisingly sophisticated intuitive grasp of probabilities, which they use to make inferences. When a toy does not work, or a squeeze ball squeaks, even babies weigh data and make informed bets about why. The results are forming the basis for a new understanding of one of the most distinctive traits of the human mind — the ability to make, test, and continually adjust ideas about how one thing causes another. Such insights could help classroom teachers. “We start with these newborn babies and by the time they’re 4 years old, they have a lot of common sense knowledge about the world. They have ideas about physics, they have ideas about other people, they have ideas about causal relationships,’’ said Laura Schulz, associate professor of cognitive sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “The way we get the world right is by making bets — based on probabilities, given the evidence.’’ © 2011 NY Times Co.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 15146 - Posted: 03.29.2011

By MURRAY CARPENTER The latest skirmish in the caffeine wars — this one involving the high levels of caffeine in so-called energy drinks, especially those consumed by children — recalls one of the earliest. It happened a century ago this month, in a courtroom in Chattanooga, Tenn. The trial grabbed headlines for weeks and produced scientific research that holds up to this day — yet generated no federal limits for caffeine in foods and beverages. Those levels remain virtually unregulated today. As two researchers recently wrote in The Journal of the American Medical Association, nonalcoholic energy drinks “might pose just as great a threat to individual and public health and safety” as alcoholic ones, and “more research that can guide actions of regulatory agencies is needed.” Nobody used the term “energy drink” in 1911, but the drink that was on trial in Chattanooga contained as much caffeine as a modern Red Bull — 80 milligrams per serving. The drink was Coca-Cola. Harvey Washington Wiley, the “crusading chemist” who led the Bureau of Chemistry in the United States Department of Agriculture, had brought a lawsuit against the Coca-Cola Company, accusing it of adulterating the drink by adding a harmful ingredient: caffeine. (Current levels of caffeine in a Coke are much lower.) © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Sleep
Link ID: 15145 - Posted: 03.29.2011

By TARA PARKER-POPE More than 10 million Americans suffer from anorexia, bulimia and other eating disorders. And while people tend to think such problems are limited to adolescence and young adulthood, Judith Shaw knows otherwise. A 58-year-old yoga instructor in St. Louis, Ms. Shaw says she was nearing 40 when she decided to “get healthy” after having children. Soon, diet and exercise became an obsession. “I was looking for something to validate myself,” she told me. “Somehow, the weight loss, and getting harder and firmer and trimmer and fitter, and then getting recognized for that, was fulfilling a need.” Experts say that while eating disorders are first diagnosed mainly in young people, more and more women are showing up at their clinics in midlife or even older. Some had eating disorders early in life and have relapsed, but a significant minority first develop symptoms in middle age. (Women with such disorders outnumber men by 10 to 1.) Cynthia M. Bulik, director of the Eating Disorders Program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, says that though it was initially aimed at adolescents, since 2003 half of its patients have been adults. “We’re hearing from women, no matter how old they are, that they still have to achieve this societal ideal of thinness and perfection,” she said. “Even in their 50s and 60s — and, believe it or not, beyond — women are engaging in extreme weight- and shape-control behaviors.” © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 15144 - Posted: 03.29.2011

by Rebecca Kessler Fear of heights can drive people to extremes, from crossing the country by bus to avoid flying to commuting extra hours every week to circumvent a high bridge. A new study now suggests one counterintuitive path to relief: The human stress hormone cortisol seems to improve the effectiveness of behavioral therapy to help people overcome their fear of heights. The standard treatment for many phobias involves exposing someone to the source of their fear in a safe environment—either in real life or, increasingly, using virtual reality. When nothing bad happens, that person gradually learns that the source—whether it's heights, snakes, or enclosed spaces—is safe. In a process called "extinction," new memories of safe experiences prevail over ingrained memories of scary ones. The treatment works, but it can take many repetitions to stick and is unpleasant enough that some patients drop out. So researchers have been looking for drugs that might be used in combination with extinction-based therapy and can help speed it up. One drug called D-cycloserine, which helps new memories form, is being tested in clinical trials in people with certain phobias. But human and animal studies have shown that hormones released during stressful situations go one step further, not only promoting the creation of new "safe" memories but also inhibiting fear memories, says cognitive neuroscientist Dominique de Quervain of the University of Basel in Switzerland, who lead the present study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Emotions; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 15143 - Posted: 03.29.2011

By Randy Dotinga MONDAY, March 28 (HealthDay News) -- Memories of devastating heartbreaks appear to trigger activity in the brain that's similar to when people suffer physical pain, new research suggests. "This tells us how serious rejection can be sometimes," said study author Edward E. Smith, director of cognitive neuroscience at Columbia University. "When people are saying 'I really feel in pain about this breakup,' you don't want to trivialize it and dismiss it by saying 'It's all in your mind.'" The finding could lead to more than a better understanding of the link between emotional and physical pain, Smith said. "Our ultimate goal is to see what kind of therapeutic approach might be useful in relieving the pain of rejection." Previous research has shown a link between what Smith calls "socially induced pain" -- the kind you get from dealing with other people -- and physical pain. For the new study, Smith and colleagues looked at rejection specifically. "From everyday experience, rejection seems to be one of the most painful things we experience," Smith said. "It seems the feelings of rejection can be sustained even longer than being angry." But where do you find rejected people? In New York City, of course, where hundreds or even thousands of relationships must fall apart every day. The researchers advertised online and in newspapers in search of people whose romantic partners had broken up with them. In all cases, they hadn't wanted the breakups to happen. © 2011 U.S.News & World Report LP

Keyword: Emotions; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 15142 - Posted: 03.29.2011

By Michelle Andrews, In any given year, more than a quarter of U.S. adults have a diagnosable mental health problem — from depression to bipolar disorder — yet fewer than half get any kind of treatment for it. The figures are similar for children. Many who do receive care get it through their primary-care physician rather than a mental health professional like a psychiatrist or psychologist. That’s partly by choice: People prefer to talk to someone they know and trust about medical problems, and for many, there’s still a stigma in seeing a “shrink.” But part of the reason people turn to their primary-care doctors or go without care is that it can be tough to get an appointment with a mental health expert. Psychiatrists, in particular, are in short supply, especially in rural areas. A recent survey conducted for the Tennessee Psychological Association, for example, found that the average wait to see a psychiatrist for a non-emergency appointment was 54 days for patients with private health insurance and 90 days for those covered by TennCare, the state’s Medicaid program, says Lance Laurence, director of professional affairs for the TPA. “It’s a huge access issue,” says Katherine Nordal, executive director for professional practice at the American Psychological Association, a trade group for psychologists. Psychologists say they have a solution to help address the access problems: Give them more authority to prescribe psychotropic medications. They can already prescribe in New Mexico and Louisiana, as well as in all branches of the military and the Indian Health Service. A half-dozen other states are considering measures that would give more psychologists prescribing authority. © 1996-2011 The Washington Post

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 15141 - Posted: 03.28.2011

By JESSE LICHTENSTEIN One day in the fall of their sophomore year, Matthew Fernandez and Akash Krishnan were at Akash’s house in Portland, Ore., trying to come up with an idea for their school’s science fair. At Oregon Episcopal School, all students in 7th to 11th grade are required to enter a project in the Aardvark Science Expo (the aardvark is the school’s mascot), and these two had teamed up for the last three years. Temporarily defeated, they popped in a DVD of “I, Robot.” There’s a scene in the movie when Will Smith, who plays a robot-hating cop, visits Bridget Moynahan, the impossibly gorgeous scientist, and they begin to argue. She gets angry. Her personal robot immediately walks into the room and asks: “Is everything all right, Ma’am? I detected elevated stress patterns in your voice.” It’s a minor exchange — a computer recognizing emotion in a human voice — in a movie full of futuristic robots wreaking havoc, but it was an aha moment for a desperate research team. Their reaction, as Matt describes it, was: “ ‘Hey, that’s really cool. I wonder if there’s any science there.’ ” There was — it was just really hard. With emotion recognition, they stumbled onto a thorny problem. Computers have become very good at parsing an audio signal into specific words and identifying their meaning. But spoken language is more than just semantics. “If I say ‘happy’ and you say ‘happy,’ it’ll sound kind of similar, and a computer can try to match that up,” Matt explains. But it’s far from clear what elements in an audio signal indicate happiness or anger as a quality of voice. Trying to figure that out quickly consumed them. Matt stayed up late reading research papers, ignoring his other homework. Akash was up until 3 a.m. many nights, reading and programming. They spent long hours at each other’s houses or talking on Skype. © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Emotions; Robotics
Link ID: 15140 - Posted: 03.28.2011

By JEFF Z. KLEIN The debate in the N.H.L. over how to curb concussions is only the latest example of tensions between liberal and traditional forces that have shaped hockey since its beginnings in 19th-century Canada. Montreal's former star Ken Dryden has urged the N.H.L. to ban all hits to the head. The extremes in the current standoff include general managers, sponsors and fans who favor a ban on hits to the head and their old-school counterparts who see such a drastic rule change as potentially robbing the league of its rugged appeal just when its popularity is growing. “The nature of the game is always being changed, but the rules, regulations, understandings and mythologies don’t change,” Ken Dryden, the Hall of Fame goalie from the Montreal Canadiens, said in describing the traditionalist impulse. “That’s when you get into trouble,” he added, “when you don’t recognize the immense changes on one side, and don’t have the corresponding changes that make sense to the different game that evolves.” Dryden broke his long silence on hockey matters this month, joining the team sponsors Air Canada and Via Rail, and the team owners Mario Lemieux of Pittsburgh and Geoff Molson of Montreal in urging the league’s general managers to recommend a prohibition of all hits to the head. The International Ice Hockey Federation, the N.C.A.A. and the Ontario Hockey League — all feeder organizations to the N.H.L. — have bans. © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 15139 - Posted: 03.28.2011

By Emma Brennand Cuckoos' egg forgery skills are increasingly being put to the test, as host birds evolve better defences, say scientists. These brood parasites, as they are called, are master deceivers - hiding their eggs in other species' nests. To avoid detection, cuckoos have evolved to mimic colour and pattern of their favoured host birds' eggs. But researchers have developed "bird's-eye view" models to find out how the hosts see the intruders' copycat eggs. If host birds do not reject cuckoo eggs, the newly hatched cuckoo chick ejects other eggs from the nest by hoisting them onto its back and dumping them over the edge. This study revealed details about the "evolutionary arms race" in which cuckoos are embroiled; as they evolve better mimicry, their hosts evolve the skills to spot these damaging intruders. Mary Caswell Stoddard and Martin Stevens from the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge, UK, published their findings in the journal Evolution. Previous egg pattern research has focused on assessing differences between colour and markings based on human visual inspection."But birds have better colour vision than humans do," Ms Stoddard told BBC News. BBC © MMXI

Keyword: Evolution; Vision
Link ID: 15138 - Posted: 03.28.2011

By Rachel Ehrenberg Navy sonar unquestionably disturbs beaked whales, concludes a new analysis investigating how underwater sound affects these elusive deep-divers. The results, published online March 14 in PLoS ONE, suggest that the current noise levels deemed risky for beaked whales need to be lowered. During sonar exercises at the U.S. Navy’s underwater test range in the Bahamas, beaked whales stopped their chirpy echolocations and fled the area, experiments employing a huge array of underwater microphones revealed. Other experiments that exposed tagged whales to increasing levels of sound found that at exposures of around 140 decibels, the animals stopped hunting for food and slowly swam toward the surface, heading north toward the only exit of the deepwater basin known as the Tongue of the Ocean. Current regulations rate underwater exposures of about 160 decibels as disturbing. “It seems beaked whales may be more sensitive than other species to sound,” says study leader Peter Tyack of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. “At the very least we may need a special rule for these whales,” he says. “If the criteria are changed they will be more protected.” Until a few different species of beaked whales started showing up in unusual mass strandings, the animals were understudied and rarely seen. Because the strandings often coincided with nearby naval sonar exercises, scientists suspected sonar was somehow driving these whales to the beach. And strange bubbles in the bodies of some of the whales suggested that sonar might trigger behavior that gave the whales the equivalent of the bends. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2011

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 15137 - Posted: 03.26.2011

By Janet Raloff Obesity subtly diminishes memory and other features of thinking and reasoning even among seemingly healthy people, an international team of scientists reports. At least some of these impairments appear reversible through weight loss. Researchers also report one likely mechanism for those cognitive deficits: damage to the wiring that links the brain’s information-processing regions. A number of studies in recent years have shown that individuals with diseases linked to obesity, including cardiovascular disease, hypertension and type 2 diabetes, don’t score as well on cognitive tests as less hefty individuals do. To test whether weight alone — and not disease — might be partially responsible, John Gunstad of Kent State University in Ohio and his colleagues recruited 150 obese individuals for a series of cognitive tests. These people weighed on average just under 300 pounds, although some were substantially heavier. Two-thirds would shortly undergo weight-loss surgery. Scores on the tests were assessed against those of people in the Brain Resource International Database, a large multicenter project with data on very healthy people. Obese individuals in the new study initially performed on the low end of the normal range for healthy individuals from the database on average, Gunstad says, although nearly one-quarter of the obese participants’ scores on memory and learning actually fell within what researchers consider the impaired range. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2011

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 15136 - Posted: 03.26.2011