(Relaxnews) - If you're trying to quit smoking, it's probably best to switch off the TV and avoid watching films, a new study suggests. Previous research has reported that watching actors puff cigarettes on screen (Mad Men anyone?) triggers cravings in smokers, but a new study published January 19 points to why. According to the research, watching actors smoke cigarettes activates the part of the brain that plans hand movements in smokers, such as movements required for lighting up and taking a drag. US researchers selected the 2003 Nicolas Cage film Matchstick Men because smoking plays a prominent role in the film, but sex, violence, and alcohol abuse don't, which researchers feared would skew the results. The study was published in the Journal of Neuroscience. To find out what happens in the brain when watching onscreen smoking, the researchers asked 17 smokers and 17 nonsmokers to watch the first 30 minutes of the movie while in a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine (fMRI), which measures blood flow to different areas of the brain as a way to track brain activity. The scans revealed that smokers' brains went into action, already planning the movements of their smoking hand, which was not the case for the nonsmokers. The volunteers did not know the experiment was about smoking. The Guardian reports that cigarette smoking is a habit that kills five million people worldwide each year. In 2010, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claimed that smoking scenes encouraged children and adolescents to light up. While smoking on television and in movies may have become less common in recent years, the organization states that around half of the popular US movies in 2009 involved smoking scenes. © 2011 NY Times Co.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 14895 - Posted: 01.21.2011

By Rachel Ehrenberg A nip of Pernod or Ouzo before dinner to stimulate the appetite may be a sound strategy. When mouse gut cells are stimulated with bitter compounds they trigger secretion of a hunger hormone, researchers report online January 18 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Whetting the appetite with a before-dinner drink, or aperitif — from the Latin aprire, to open — has long been associated with improved digestion. The often bitter drinks typically contain a secret mixture of herbs and spices, sometimes to deliberately quell the taste of another common aperitif ingredient — quinine. Quinine is one of a number of compounds that stimulate the bitter taste receptors — cells that, in the mouth, are seen as a first line of defense against ingesting toxins. So scientists thought that eating such compounds would inhibit appetite, not rev it up. But when mice were fed a bitter mixture, their levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin spiked, a research team from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium reports. These mice then went on a half-hour eating binge, unlike counterparts that had impaired machinery for sensing bitter compounds. Oddly, this binge was followed by several hours of fasting, and experiments revealed a delay in digestion of the large meal. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2011

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste); Obesity
Link ID: 14894 - Posted: 01.21.2011

By Nathan Seppa Antibodies generated by a new vaccine can capture molecules of cocaine in the precious few seconds that lapse before the drug reaches the brain, a study in mice shows. Although the antibody brigade doesn’t snag all the cocaine, it seems to collar enough to greatly subdue the agitation that mice exhibit when given the drug. Based on these findings, the researchers are moving on to studies in rats and monkeys in hopes of testing the vaccine in people. The new report will appear in the March Molecular Therapy. “When someone takes cocaine — whether snorted, smoked or injected — you don’t have much time,” says study coauthor Ronald Crystal, a pulmonary physician at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. “It takes about six second to pass from the lungs to the blood to the brain.” A vaccine would need to elicit a standing army poised to intercede. “You need avid antibodies, at high levels,” Crystal says. In the new study, Crystal and his colleagues gave mice three injections over six weeks. Some of the animals received a placebo while the others got the experimental vaccine, which combines a cocainelike substance with portions of an adenovirus that stimulate an immune response but don’t cause disease. Seven weeks later, all the mice were exposed to cocaine by injection. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2011

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 14893 - Posted: 01.21.2011

By Tina Hesman Saey Staying up all night clearly taxes the body, but scientists have only now added up the exact bill. By measuring the actual number of calories the body expends to fuel an all-nighter versus a good night’s sleep, researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder calculate that a full night of sleep helps the body conserve as much energy as is in a glass of warm milk. Missing a night of sleep forces the body to burn about an extra 161 calories than it would have during eight hours of sleep (not counting what’s used in moving around while awake), but it’s no weight-loss miracle: The body tries to make up for the deficit by saving more energy than usual the next day and night, researchers report in the January Journal of Physiology. The measurements, the first to put precise numbers on how much total energy people use in a 24-hour period while asleep, awake or recovering from a night of sleep deprivation, help bolster a theory that an important function of sleep is to save energy (SN: 10/24/09, p. 16). To measure how much energy people use during sleep in a more rigorous way than has been done before, Kenneth Wright, a physiologist at the University of Colorado, and his colleagues studied seven people. Each of the healthy young volunteers lived inside a sealed room for three days. The volunteers were on bed rest the entire time and ate the same amount of calories at the same time each day. The researchers continually monitored the subject’s brain waves and how much oxygen and carbon dioxide the person breathed in and out. From there, the team could calculate each person’s energy use during each stage of sleep and waking. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2011

Keyword: Obesity; Sleep
Link ID: 14892 - Posted: 01.21.2011

by Wendy Zukerman After only 12 generations of practising polygamy male mice are much more fertile than their monogamous brethren. That is the conclusion of the first study to provide concrete evidence for the evolutionary theory which proposes that competition for mates will increase male fertility, says Leigh Simmons at the University of Western Australia, Australia. House mice (Mus domesticus) can swap between being polygamous and monogamous. To see if this had an impact on their sperm quality, Simmons and his colleague Renee Firman created polygamous and monogamous breeds and compared their fertility. For the "monogamous" mice, they paired 18 males with 18 female mice, then took two offspring from each monogamous couple – one male and one female – and bred them with the offspring of another monogamous couple. The experiment was repeated for 12 generations. For "polygamous" mice, each female was sequentially mated with three males, and this, too, was repeated for 12 generations. At the end of breeding, all mice were the same size and weight. Sperm success Next came the ultimate test: would sperm from polygamous males be more successful at producing offspring than sperm from monogamous mice? © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 14891 - Posted: 01.21.2011

by Rachel Courtland "BIRD brain" is usually an insult, but that may have to change. A light-activated compass at the back of some birds' eyes may preserve electrons in delicate quantum states for longer than the best artificial systems. Migrating birds navigate by sensing Earth's magnetic field, but the exact mechanisms at work are unclear. Pigeons are thought to rely on bits of magnetite in their beaks. Others, like the European robin (pictured), may rely on light-triggered chemical changes that depend on the bird's orientation relative to Earth's magnetic field. A process called the radical pair (RP) mechanism is believed to be behind the latter method. In this mechanism, light excites two electrons on one molecule and shunts one of them onto a second molecule. Although the two electrons are separated, their spins are linked through quantum entanglement. The electrons eventually relax, destroying this quantum state. Before this happens, however, Earth's magnetic field can alter the relative alignment of the electrons' spins, which in turn alters the chemical properties of the molecules involved. A bird could then use the concentrations of chemicals at different points on its eye to deduce its orientation. Intrigued by the idea that, if the RP mechanism is correct, a delicate quantum state can survive a busy place like the back of an eye, Erik Gauger of the University of Oxford and colleagues set out to find out how long the electrons remain entangled. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Animal Migration; Vision
Link ID: 14890 - Posted: 01.21.2011

by Carl Zimmer Imagine that an eccentric psychologist accosts you. In his hand is a piece of paper with 20 pictures of roses. One of the pictures shows a rose in the flower bed you just passed, he says, and he asks you to pick its picture out from his lineup. The challenge would seem absurd—but if you were to change the roses to faces, nearly everyone could meet it. Most of us have a powerful ability to recognize faces, and yet we hardly ever take note of it. We can commit a face to memory with a single viewing, and even if we see that face only once its memory can stay fresh for years. The faces we remember so easily may differ only in subtle tweaks of geometry: the ratio of distances between different landmarks such as the eyes and the mouth, for example. A small fraction of people, however, cannot recognize faces—even the faces of their parents, spouses, and children. Prosopagnosia, as this condition is known, can affect people from birth or be triggered later in life by injuries to the brain. It strikes an estimated 2 percent of Americans and is often accompanied by other types of recognition impairments, including difficulty recognizing places and objects, such as cars. Despite the millions of people who suffer from prosopagnosia, it remains an obscure disorder, probably due to the skill with which face-blind people quietly compensate for their condition. In his new book, The Mind’s Eye (Amazon; book review in The New York Times), neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks makes the surprising disclosure that he has prosopagnosia. © 2011, Kalmbach Publishing Co.

Keyword: Attention; Laterality
Link ID: 14889 - Posted: 01.21.2011

By Kevin Mitchell What if your brain knew something but couldn’t tell you? New research suggests that this is exactly what may be behind two rather curious conditions. Most of us are familiar with people who are tune deaf – these are the people who not only cannot sing in tune but are also unaware of that fact. Individuals with severe forms of this condition, known as amusia, are unable to detect whether particular notes within a melody are out of tune or out of key. Many are also unable to recognise melodies without lyrics or to hold a tune in their heads, even if they have just heard it. These difficulties arise despite normal hearing and also a fairly normal ability to hear the difference between isolated tones. The defect lies in connecting this sensory input with some implicit knowledge of musical structure and contours. Amusia thus falls into a class of conditions known as agnosias, which are characterised by the lack of knowledge of some, often very specific, category of object. Another, equally curious, example of this class of condition is prosopagnosia – the lack of knowledge of faces. People with severe prosopagnosia may be completely unable to recognise the faces of famous people, friends, loved ones, even their own faces. As with amusia, this reflects a high-level deficit – people with prosopagnosia have normal vision and the ability to distinguish specific facial features, gender, even facial emotions. Both conditions thus seem to reflect the inability to link incoming sensory information (a person’s face or a specific note) with stored, implicit knowledge about that category (the person’s identity or a specific melody or general rules of melodic stucture). © 2011 Scientific American, a Division of Nature America, Inc.

Keyword: Hearing; Attention
Link ID: 14888 - Posted: 01.21.2011

By NICHOLAS WADE Chaser, a border collie who lives in Spartanburg, S.C., has the largest vocabulary of any known dog. She knows 1,022 nouns, a record that displays unexpected depths of the canine mind and may help explain how children acquire language. Chaser belongs to John W. Pilley, a psychologist who taught for 30 years at Wofford College, a liberal arts institution in Spartanburg. In 2004, after he had retired, he read a report in Science about Rico, a border collie whose German owners had taught him to recognize 200 items, mostly toys and balls. Dr. Pilley decided to repeat the experiment using a technique he had developed for teaching dogs, and he describes his findings in the current issue of the journal Behavioural Processes. He bought Chaser as a puppy in 2004 from a local breeder and started to train her for four to five hours a day. He would show her an object, say its name up to 40 times, then hide it and ask her to find it, while repeating the name all the time. She was taught one or two new names a day, with monthly revisions and reinforcement for any names she had forgotten. Border collies are working dogs. They have a reputation for smartness, and they are highly motivated. They are bred to herd sheep indefatigably all day long. Absent that task, they must be given something else to do or they go stir crazy. Chaser proved to be a diligent student. Unlike human children, she seems to love her drills and tests and is always asking for more. “She still demands four to five hours a day,” Dr. Pilley said. “I’m 82, and I have to go to bed to get away from her.” © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Language; Evolution
Link ID: 14887 - Posted: 01.18.2011

Obesity is one the last forms of discrimination that society readily accepts, and that's no laughing matter, a Canadian summit heard Monday. The Canadian Obesity Network, an advocacy group that organized the conference in Toronto, is considering calling for federal legislation that would make it illegal for employers to discriminate against overweight Canadians, a move the state of Michigan has made. The network brought together some of North America's top obesity experts and people who struggle with weight issues in what the network says is the first Canadian conference to deal with weight bias and discrimination. Summit participant David Dolomont said he weighs more than 300 pounds and has faced taunts and jokes about his excess weight since childhood. "My mother would have to take me to that special store downtown to buy pants because I had to get into the so called 'husky size,' Dolomont recalled when he spoke about his experience at the conference. The discrimination didn't end with adulthood when he started to work as a paramedic in Hamilton, he said. Dolomont remembers feeling ashamed and embarrassed during a breakfast at work where he was singled out by a supervisor. "He saw me and then come over right away and said, 'Hey David glad you're here. We knew you were coming this morning so we asked them to put on a second cook and get some extra food in just because we knew you were going to be here today." © CBC 2011

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 14886 - Posted: 01.18.2011

A person's friends tend to share certain genes in common with each other — but not always with the individual, a new study suggests. "People’s friends may not only have similar traits, but actually resemble each other on a genotypic level," said the study led by James Fowler, a geneticist at the University of California at San Diego. The findings were published Friday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers noticed two distinct patterns within social networks when it came to the genes DRD2, which has been linked to alcoholism, and CYP2AP, which is linked with the character trait of openness. In the case of DRD2, people with the marker tend to make friends with those who also have that marker. People without it tend to make friends with other DRD2-negative individuals. In the case of CYP2A6, the person who has the gene tends to be the hub of a social network made up of people who don't have it and instead share the opposite genotype. Four other genes examined by the researchers did not show such patterns among groups of friends. The analysis found that this gene clustering within social networks was apparent even when the researchers took into account the fact that people are more likely to make friends with people who live near them. The findings suggest that studies linking certain traits to genes may be biased in ways that were not previously anticipated. © CBC 2011

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 14885 - Posted: 01.18.2011

* Jonathan Leake LIFE really is unfair. Researchers have found that handsome men and beautiful women tend to be cleverer, with IQs averaging up to nearly 14 points above the norm. The finding, based on studies in Britain and America, suggests that the stereotype of blondes or good-looking men being dimmer than average needs to be revised. Instead it seems that evolution favours the already blessed, rewarding attractive people with partners who are not just good-looking but intelligent too. The research, by the London School of Economics, suggests that since both beauty and intelligence tend to be inherited, the children of such couples will end up with both qualities, building a genetic link between them. This link then becomes reinforced with successive generations. “Both in the British and American samples, physical attractiveness is significantly positively associated with general intelligence, both with and without controls for social class, body size, and health,” said Satoshi Kanazawa, the LSE researcher who carried out the research. “The association between physical attractiveness and general intelligence is also stronger among men than among women.” Dr Kanazawa found that in Britain men who are physically attractive have IQs an average 13.6 points above the norm, whereas physically attractive women are about 11.4 points higher than average. Copyright 2011 News Limited.

Keyword: Intelligence; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 14884 - Posted: 01.18.2011

By Jesse Bering Women, gather round, read carefully, because this gay man—who once, long ago, feigned sexual interest in your bodies—is about to shine a spotlight on some hidden truths about your natural design. It's by no means a perfect system, but evolution has endowed you with some extraordinary, almost preternatural abilities to prevent your own sexual assault. And these abilities are especially pronounced when you're ovulating. Although it can certainly take other forms, rape will be defined throughout this article as the use of force, or threat of force, to achieve penile-vaginal penetration of a woman without her consent. Whether or not human males evolved to rape women is, to put it mildly, a controversial topic. The flames were fanned especially with the publication, about a decade ago, of Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer's A Natural History of Rape, which presented evidence of what appear to be biological adaptations in human males (as well as males of many other species) specialized for forcibly coercing females into copulation. They argued that rape is an adaptive behavior in certain contexts; for example, when consensual partners are unavailable. There is some evidence that convicted rapists are physically unattractive, at least as judged by women on the basis of their mug shots. And spousal rape is most likely to occur when the husband finds out (or suspects) his wife has been unfaithful, suggesting that he is attempting to supplant another man's seed. (In fact, the distinctive, mushroom-capped shape of the human penis is designed to perform the specialized function of removing competitors' sperm, which indicates an ancestral history of females having sex with multiple males within a 24-hr period.) Furthermore, UCLA psychologist Neil Malamuth and his colleagues found that one-third of men admit that they would engage in some type of sexual coercion if they could be assured they would suffer no negative consequences, and many report having related masturbatory fantasies. © Copyright 2011 Washington Post.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 14883 - Posted: 01.18.2011

by Linda Geddes Sammy Maloney was a healthy, outgoing 12-year-old, who played in the school band, and liked nothing better than to dump his backpack after school and hang out with his friends in Kennebunkport, Maine. Then, in 2002, Sammy's personality began to change. "The first thing I noticed was that he was walking around the backyard with his eyes closed," says Sammy's mother, Beth Maloney. "I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was memorising." The next day, Sammy was again walking with his eyes closed and would only use the back door. Then he progressed to holding his breath while doing it, only wearing certain coloured clothes, and refusing to allow the windows to be opened, or the lights to be switched off. "Every single day was a new behaviour," says Beth. "We went from baseline to completely dysfunctional within a period of four to six weeks." Sammy was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder, and then Tourette's syndrome. When he continued to deteriorate, a friend suggested testing Sammy for streptococcus - a common childhood bacterial infection that usually causes no more than a sore throat. "By this point he was totally emaciated and he was covered with scabs from scratching himself," says Beth. Sammy hadn't shown any signs of streptococcal infection, but it turned out he was infected. When doctors prescribed antibiotics, his symptoms began to improve. Within a few weeks he was playing board games with his brothers. "After six months of treatment, I knew that he would recover," says Beth. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; Tourettes
Link ID: 14882 - Posted: 01.18.2011

By NANCY STEARNS BERCAW My father knew it was coming. Alzheimer’s disease had been on his radar ever since his own father died of it. Witnessing the catastrophic deterioration of a man who had been sharp enough to work for Gen. Douglas MacArthur, my frightened father was inspired to become a neurologist. Perhaps the pursuit of medicine could stave off what he believed was a genetic inevitability. As an ever-present reminder of that threat, he kept an atrophied brain in a jar on his desk. That brain, I recently discovered, belonged to his father. As my father approached middle age he began to experiment on himself, with diet supplements. By age 60 he was taking 78 tablets a day. He tracked down anything that offered the possibility of saving brain cells and killing free radicals: Omega 3s, 6s, 9s; vitamins E and C; ginkgo biloba, rosemary and sage; folic acid; flaxseed. After retiring from his neurology practice in Naples, Fla., he spent hours a day doing math. Even when I was visiting, he’d sit silently on his leather recliner with a calculator to verify the accuracy of calculations he did by memory. “What are you saving your mind for, Dad?” I often wondered to myself. “I’m here now, waiting to talk with you.” On one of these occasions, he suddenly looked up from his Sudoku game and stared at me. “Promise me something, gal,” he said. “Anything,” I answered. “Swear on your grandmother’s Bible that you will put a gun to my head if I wind up like my father.” He was dead serious. © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 14881 - Posted: 01.18.2011

Having the lights on before bedtime could result in a worse night's sleep, according to a study to be published in the Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism. The research shows that the body produces less of the sleep hormone melatonin when exposed to light. Sleep patterns have been linked to some types of cancer, blood pressure and diabetes. The US researchers also found lower melatonin levels in shift workers. Lifestyles may have moved on from a day/night rhythm, but it seems the human body has not. The pineal gland produces melatonin through the night and starts when darkness falls. Researchers have shown that switching on lights in the home switches off the hormone's production. In the study, 116 people spent five days in room where the amount of light and sleep was controlled. They were awake for 16 hours and asleep for eight hours each day. Initially the patients were exposed to 16 hours of room light during their waking hours. They were then moved onto eight hours of room light in the morning and eight hours of dim light in the evening. The researchers found that electrical light between dusk and bedtime strongly suppressed melatonin levels. With dim light, melatonin was produced for 90 minutes more a day. BBC © MMXI

Keyword: Biological Rhythms; Sleep
Link ID: 14880 - Posted: 01.17.2011

Those first few puffs on a cigarette can within minutes cause genetic damage linked to cancer, US scientists said in a study released Saturday. In fact, researchers said the "effect is so fast that it's equivalent to injecting the substance directly into the bloodstream," in findings described as a "stark warning" to those who smoke. The study is the first on humans to track how substances in tobacco cause DNA damage, and appears in the peer-reviewed journal Chemical Research in Toxicology, issued by the American Chemical Society. Using 12 volunteer smokers, scientists tracked pollutants called PAHs, or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, that are carried in tobacco smoke and can also be found in coal-burning plants and in charred barbecue food. They followed one particular type -- phenanthrene, which is found in cigarette smoke -- through the blood and saw it form a toxic substance that is known to "trash DNA, causing mutations that can cause cancer," the study said. "The smokers developed maximum levels of the substance in a time frame that surprised even the researchers: just 15-30 minutes after the volunteers finished smoking," the study said. "These results are significant because PAH diol epoxides react readily with DNA, induce mutations, and are considered to be ultimate carcinogens of multiple PAH in cigarette smoke," the study said. © 2011 Discovery Communications, LLC.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 14879 - Posted: 01.17.2011

FEELING happy? Down in the dumps? Or been behaving strangely lately? Besides the obvious reasons, whether or not you are happy or sad, or prone to depression or other mental illnesses, could be a consequence of an infection - or even down to the diseases that you didn't catch during childhood. "It used to be thought that the immune system and the nervous system were worlds apart," says John Bienenstock of McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. Now it seems the immune system, and infections that stimulate it, can influence our moods, memory and ability to learn. Some strange behaviours, such as obsessive compulsive disorder, may be triggered by infections, and the immune system may even shape our basic personalities, such as how anxious or impulsive we are. The good news is that understanding these links between the brain and immune system could lead to new ways of treating all kinds of disorders, from depression to Tourette's syndrome. This is a massive shift in thinking. Not so long ago, the blood-brain barrier was thought to isolate the brain from the immune system. The cells that make up the walls of blood capillaries are joined together more tightly in the brain than elsewhere in the body, preventing proteins and cells getting into the brain. Now, though, it is becoming clear that antibodies, signalling molecules and even immune cells often get through, sometimes with radical effects. In fact, immune cells do not even need to reach the brain to influence it. Here we look at some of the effects they can have.

Keyword: Emotions; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 14878 - Posted: 01.17.2011

Jennifer Couzin-Frankel In the fall of 2008, Stephen Kingsmore, a longtime gene hunter, was approached by two biotech entrepreneurs. One of them, Craig Benson, had just learned that his 5-year-old daughter had juvenile Batten disease, a rare, fatal, inherited, neurological disorder. The pair had a question for Kingsmore: Could he develop a cheap, reliable genetic test for Batten and other equally horrible diseases, available to all parents to prevent the conception or birth of affected children? Their goal was simple: Do everything possible to eradicate these diseases, because, knowing now which genes cause them, we can. At the time this kind of screening, called carrier testing, was relatively uncommon. Both parents need to carry the same mutated gene for their child to develop a disease like Batten, and many of these recessive diseases are vanishingly rare. The number of affected children born each year can be in the single digits. Given that, it hasn't made fiscal sense to offer tests for dozens of diseases to everyone when so few couples will be carriers of any given one. In communities in which certain mutated genes pop up more often, such as Ashkenazi Jews, carrier testing has been common for years and has drastically reduced the number of babies born with diseases like Tay-Sachs. But DNA sequencing technology was moving fast and costs were dropping. What the two men proposed might now be doable, Kingsmore thought. He took on the project. © 2011 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 14877 - Posted: 01.17.2011

By Laura Sanders Satirist Stephen Colbert envisions his “Colbert Nation” mentally marching in lockstep with his special brand of patriotism. But scientists have done him one better, by creating tiny worm-bots completely under their control. Rather than comedic persuasion, these scientists are using a dot of laser light. With it they can make a worm turn left, freeze or lay an egg. The researchers report their work online January 16 in Nature Methods. The new system, named CoLBeRT for “Controlling Locomotion and Behavior in Real Time,” doesn’t just create a mindless zombie-worm, though. It gives scientists the ability to pick apart complicated behaviors on a cell-by-cell basis. “This system is really remarkable,” says biological physicist William Ryu of the University of Toronto, who was not involved in the research. “It’s a very important advance in pursuit of the goal of understanding behavior.” Transparent and small, the nematode C. elegans is particularly amenable to light-based mind control. Another benefit of the worm is that researchers know the precise location of all 302 of its nerve cells. But until now, there wasn’t a good way to study each cell by itself, especially in a wriggling animal. “This tool allows us to go in and poke and prod at those neurons in an animal as it’s moving, and see exactly what each neuron does,” says study coauthor Andrew Leifer of Harvard University. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2011

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 14876 - Posted: 01.17.2011