by Allison Bohac Most people know how hard it can be to stick to a diet. But for children with epilepsy, maintaining a restrictive high-fat, low-carbohydrate regimen known as the ketogenic diet is far more difficult than any weight-loss plan. Someday, however, they may be able to control seizures with a simple supplement instead, if a new finding in mice holds up in humans. Almost a third of epilepsy patients, many of them children, don't respond to antiseizure drugs. For reasons that are not well understood, the ketogenic diet can prevent seizures for some of these children. But it's by no means an easy fix. Patients need to eat 80% to 90% of their daily calories as fat, usually in the form of vegetable oil or butter. Only some versions of the diet allow any carbohydrates at all, and sugary desserts are off-limits. "Eating a cookie can break the effect of the diet, resulting in a seizure," explains Karin Borges, a neurobiologist at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, in Australia. Hoping to design a more palatable alternative to the ketogenic diet, Borges and her colleagues began experimenting with a synthetic oil often found in antiwrinkle creams and other cosmetics. The compound, called triheptanoin, is already used to treat certain metabolic disorders; researchers believe it works because it replenishes specific molecules needed to produce the energy-carrying molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Borges reasoned that these metabolites, which are also the building blocks for certain chemical messengers in the brain, might be depleted by the flurry of brain activity that occurs during a seizure. Lower ATP levels in the brain can destabilize neurons, triggering more seizures. Borges hoped that a diet supplemented with triheptanoin would replenish the brain's supply of metabolites and boost ATP production, helping to control epileptic bursts. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Epilepsy
Link ID: 14818 - Posted: 12.27.2010

By Nathan Seppa Epilepsy that strikes in childhood and lingers into adulthood triples an individual’s risk of dying, researchers find. But children who “outgrow” epilepsy and see their seizures fade as adults don’t have this added mortality risk, researchers report in the Dec. 23 New England Journal of Medicine. The findings, from a 40-year study in Finland, provide a long-term look that doctors can use as they puzzle over whether to recommend surgery for patients or continue with medication, says neurologist David Ficker of the University of Cincinnati, who wasn’t involved in the study. “We probably should be treating epilepsy aggressively in people who aren’t seizure-free,” he says. Doctors tracked the fate of 245 children diagnosed with epilepsy in the early 1960s. Half of the patients had epilepsy stemming from no clear cause and were neurologically normal, apart from having seizures. The other half had a clear epilepsy trigger, such as severe head trauma, brain injury from meningitis or encephalitis, or other brain damage that was identifiable on scans such as magnetic resonance imaging. All the patients got checkups every five years until 2002. By then, 60 had died, a rate three times the average for people in Finland of comparable age, ranging up to 54 years. Of those 60 deaths, 51 occurred in the 107 patients who were still having seizures. Only five occurred in the 35 who had been in remission for five years or more with the help of medication, and four deaths occurred in the 103 people whose seizures had been in remission for that long without medication. Overall, 33 deaths were tied to epilepsy. The other deaths were mainly due to pneumonia and heart disease. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2010

Keyword: Epilepsy; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 14817 - Posted: 12.27.2010

By Rachel Ehrenberg Even if your baby is very smart, he probably can’t read your mind — he might not even know you have one. New research suggests that infants as young as 7 months are sensitive to the perspectives of others. But more work is needed to demonstrate whether babies fully grasp that others have their own beliefs. The new study, published December 24 in Science, adds to a large body of research exploring when humans first develop the capacity to infer the intentions and perspectives of others, a cognitive ability termed “theory of mind.” Scientists have long debated whether this is an innate ability or one that is arrived at as a young brain gathers information and experience. Previous research suggested that kids can’t distinguish between what other people believe is going on from what is actually going on until the age of 4 or 5. This developmental milestone was explored in classic experiments where children see a boy, Maxie, put chocolate into a kitchen drawer. Maxie then leaves, and someone else comes in and moves the chocolate to a cupboard. Then Maxie comes back inside and wants his chocolate. The children are asked where Maxie will go: the drawer, where he thinks the chocolate is, or the cupboard, where it really is. Young 3-year-olds say Maxie will go to the drawer, says cognitive development specialist Josef Perner of the University of Salzburg, who conducted the Maxie experiments in the early 1980s. “It’s only around 4 or 5 that children realize he doesn’t act according to how the world is, but acts according to his inner world.” © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2010

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 14816 - Posted: 12.27.2010

– Psychiatric medicine may be avoided for children with anxiety disorders if a brain scan shows they are likely to respond to “talk therapy,” according to neuroscientists from Georgetown’s Medical Center. In a recent study at the center, brain scans showed that behavior in children and young adolescents naturally veers toward the egocentric. “These results suggest that children develop introspection over time as their brains develop,” says the study’s first author, Stuart Washington, who graduated from the university in 2008 with a Ph.D. in biomedical neuroscience. “Before then they are somewhat egocentric, which is not to mean that they are negatively self-centered, but they think that everyone views the world in the same way they do. They lack perspective in that way.” The researchers’ study, presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego this past fall, shows that children and adolescent ages 8 to 16 who expressed fear while looking at fearful faces are more likely to benefit from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), also known as talk therapy. Children and adolescents who showed fear when looking at happy faces on a screen inside an fMRI scanner had the least success with an eight-week course of CBT. The Fear Center “Anxiety and fear are intrinsically linked, so how the brain’s fear center responds would naturally affect how anxiety disorders manifest,” says the study’s lead author, Steve Rich, a fourth-year medical student.

Keyword: Emotions; Brain imaging
Link ID: 14815 - Posted: 12.27.2010

By Dan Slater What I remember most about my stutter is not the stupefying vocal paralysis, the pursed eyes or the daily ordeal of gagging on my own speech, sounds ricocheting off the back of my teeth like pennies trying to escape a piggy bank. Those were merely the mechanics of stuttering, the realities to which one who stutters adjusts his expectations of life. Rather, what was most pervasive about my stutter is the strange role it played in determining how I felt about others, about you. My stutter became a barometer of how much confidence I felt in your presence. Did I perceive you as friendly, patient, kind? Or as brash and aggressive? How genuine was your smile? Did you admire my talents, or were you wary of my more unseemly traits? In this way I divided the world into two types of people: those around whom I stuttered and those around whom I might not. The onset of my stutter occurred under typical circumstances: I was 4; I had a father who carried a stutter into adulthood; and, at the time, my parents were engaged in a bitter, protracted, Reagan-era divorce that seemed destined for mutually assured destruction. My mother chronicled my speech problems in her diaries from the period. Sept. 26, 1981: "Daniel has been biting his fingernails for the past several weeks; along with stuttering up." July 8, 1982: "After phone call [with his father] Danny stuttering quite a bit, blocking on words." © 2010 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 14814 - Posted: 12.22.2010

Capsaicin, the compound in chillies which gives them their kick, can also turn on the switch. It is believed the study could herald the development of new painkilling drugs. The team looked at the mechanics of the pain gene known as substance-P which was first associated with chronic inflammatory pain more than 30 years ago. Genes need "switches", known as promoters and enhancers, to turn them on in the right place, at the right time and at the right level. One of the major findings of the study was that the switches do not act in isolation and need other switches to "speak to" in order to activate the gene. Researchers based in the university's Kosterlitz Centre for Therapeutics spent five years looking for the switches that turn the substance-P gene on in a group of cells called sensory neurones. Dr Lynne Shanley said: "Finding the switch was like looking for a needle in a haystack. "However, by comparing the genetic sequences of humans, mice and chickens, we were able to find a short stretch of DNA that had remained unchanged since before the age of dinosaurs. "We were delighted when this little bit of DNA turned out to be a genetic switch, or enhancer sequence, which could turn on the substance-P gene in sensory neurones." ©independent.co.uk

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 14813 - Posted: 12.22.2010

By NICHOLAS WADE Working with human brain tissue removed in surgery, researchers have identified the components of a critical part of the brain’s architecture: the synapse, or junction where one neuron makes a connection with another. The work should help in understanding how the synapse works in laying down memories, as well as the basis of the many diseases that turn out to be caused by defects in the synapse’s delicate machinery. The research team, led by Seth Grant of the Sanger Institute near Cambridge, England, compiled the first exact inventory of all the protein components of the synaptic information-processing machinery. No fewer than 1,461 proteins are involved in this biological machinery, they report in the current issue of Nature Neuroscience. They have tied their catalog into the human genome sequence, connecting each protein to the gene that contains instructions for making it. This has allowed them to compare their findings in humans with other species whose genomes have been sequenced, such as the Neanderthals, who “would have suffered from the same range of psychiatric disease as humans,” Dr. Grant said. Each neuron in the human brain makes an average 1,000 or so connections with other neurons. There are 100 billion neurons, so the brain probably contains 100 trillion synapses, its most critical working part. Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 14812 - Posted: 12.22.2010

by Andy Coghlan The astonishing ability of many children with autism to rapidly locate concealed on-screen symbols falls apart in an experiment that mimics hunting for objects in the real world. The experiment took place on an array of 49 lights resembling a disco dance floor (see picture). For each game, researchers switched on an apparently random pattern of 16 green lights. Children then had to dash around pressing them, searching for one that turned red. Twenty children with autism and 20 without took turns to complete the game as fast as possible. The game was biased so that 80 per cent of the time, the light that turned red was located in a specific half of the room. Children with autism were expected to spot this pattern faster but the reverse happened. Non-autistic children spent 60 per cent of their time searching the target-rich half, compared with 45 per cent for those with autism. The team, led by Liz Pellicano of London's Institute of Education, suggests that while autistic kids may be good at spotting preset visual patterns, they find it harder to work out rules from apparently random events. "The main message is the difference between rule formation and visual pattern detection," says Laurent Mottron of the Fernand-Seguin Research Center in Montreal, Canada. "There's something about strategic search tasks that leans into areas of weakness in autism," says Francesca Happé of the Institute of Psychiatry in London. Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1014076108 © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Autism; Vision
Link ID: 14811 - Posted: 12.22.2010

Babies are more likely to die of sudden infant death syndrome on New Year's than other days of the year, a new study suggests. The reasons are not clear but researchers suspect that parents who celebrate the new year with heavy drinking aren't being attentive enough to their children and how they're put to bed. The researchers examined a large U.S. database to explore connections between alcohol and SIDS — the sudden, unexpected death of an apparently healthy infant under one year of age. The spike in deaths is beyond the normal winter increase in SIDS, sociologist David Phillips of the University of California, San Diego, and his co-authors report in this week's issue of the journal Addiction. They analyzed a database of 129,090 deaths from SIDS from 1973 to 2006 and 295,151 other infant deaths in those years. The study doesn't give actual figures for the New Year's Day deaths from SIDS but said the number was about a third higher than would be expected on any other winter day. To see if parental sleeping-in might be a factor rather than intoxication, the researchers checked for shifts in deaths when clocks are set back an hour in the fall. No rise in SIDS was found then. The study doesn't show alcohol consumption is a cause of SID, but the findings raise concerns, Phillips said. Drunk parents could be doing something or not doing something that puts babies at risk, he suggested. © CBC 2010

Keyword: Sleep; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 14810 - Posted: 12.22.2010

Wendy Zukerman and David Cohen There's been a slight over-reaction in the media to the publication of a study exploring the fascinating effects of the drug ketamine on people's perception of reality. Most reports got bogged down in hyped outrage over paying students £250 to take part in the trial, and the side effects experienced by one participant. Paying participants is a common practice in scientific research and risks would have been weighed by an ethical review board. The side effects reported in a local Cambridgeshire newspaper seemed to have stirred things up, even though that report also admits it is not the first of its kind - at least two other studies involving ketamine were conducted at Cambridge over the last two years. But there's a far more interesting story here. Hannah Morgan at Cambridge University and Philip Corlett at Yale University, Connecticut, found that ketamine increased susceptibility to an illusion that makes people believe a rubber hand is their own. The finding illustrates how easily our sense of self can be manipulated, and could illuminate the underpinnings of schizophrenia - a condition where sufferers often believe actions, thoughts and even limbs are not their own. Over 10 years ago, researchers found that if they put a rubber hand on a table in front of a person and stroked the rubber hand and the person's hand simultaneously, they could convince the volunteer the rubber hand was their own. Subsequent research found that this rubber hand illusion (RHI) is more easily induced in schizophrenics than in healthy people. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 14809 - Posted: 12.22.2010

by Greg Miller For children with dyslexia, reading doesn't come naturally, and only about 20% of them grow into normal readers by adulthood. No one knows why this is, and standard reading tests can't predict which kids will outgrow their reading problems. But brain scans can, according to a new study. The researchers say their findings provide clues about the neurobiology of dyslexia and could one day help educators identify students who could benefit from more intensive help. Neuroscientist Fumiko Hoeft of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, and her colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate brain activity during reading in 45 children between the ages of 7 and 16, of whom 25 had dyslexia. After 2.5 years, the same children returned to the lab to take a battery of standardized reading tests. Then the researchers went back to the brain scans to see if there were differences in the kids with dyslexia who had made the biggest improvements. And indeed there were. Inside the scanner, participants had seen pairs of words flashed on a screen and been asked to indicate whether they rhymed. Children with dyslexia take longer and make more mistakes, especially when different spellings produce a rhyme, as in "gate" and "bait." To analyze brain activity evoked by this task, Hoeft's group used a method called multivariate pattern analysis, a statistical technique for comparing patterns of activation across the entire brain (Science, 13 June 2008, p. 1412). The patterns predicted with 92% accuracy which dyslexic kids exhibited above or below average gains in reading over the next 2.5 years, the researchers report online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This particular type of analysis doesn't reveal which brain regions are responsible, however. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Dyslexia; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 14808 - Posted: 12.22.2010

By Bruce Bower Deep in a Ugandan forest, Betsy Wetsy has gone wild. A new study finds that young females in one group of African chimpanzees use sticks as dolls more than their male peers do, often treating pieces of wood like a mother chimp caring for an infant. In human cultures around the world, girls play with dolls and pretend that the toys are babies far more than boys do. Ape observations, collected over 14 years of field work with the Kanyawara chimp community in Kibale National Park, provide the first evidence of a nonhuman animal in the wild that exhibits sex differences in how it plays, two primatologists report in the Dec. 21 Current Biology. This finding supports a controversial view that biology as well as society underlies boys’ and girls’ contrasting toy preferences. Young male Kanyawara chimps occasionally used sticks to mimic child care. Far more often, they fought with sticks, an infrequent behavior among females, say Sonya Kahlenberg of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and Richard Wrangham of Harvard University. “Although play choices of young chimps showed no evidence of being directly influenced by older chimps, young females tended to carry sticks in a manner suggestive of doll use and play-mothering,” Wrangham says. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2010

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 14807 - Posted: 12.22.2010

By CARL ZIMMER Deep in a cave in the forests of northern Spain are the remains of a gruesome massacre. The first clues came to light in 1994, when explorers came across a pair of what they thought were human jawbones in the cave, called El Sidrón. At first, the bones were believed to date to the Spanish Civil War. Back then, Republican fighters used the cave as a hide-out. The police discovered more bone fragments in El Sidrón, which they sent to forensic scientists, who determined that the bones did not belong to soldiers, or even to modern humans. They were the remains of Neanderthals who died 50,000 years ago. Today, El Sidrón is one of the most important sites on Earth for learning about Neanderthals, who thrived across Europe and Asia from about 240,000 to 30,000 years ago. Scientists have found 1,800 more Neanderthal bone fragments in the cave, some of which have yielded snippets of DNA. But the mystery has lingered on for 16 years. What happened to the El Sidrón victims? In a paper this week in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Spanish scientists who analyzed the bones and DNA report the gruesome answer. The victims were a dozen members of an extended family, slaughtered by cannibals. “It’s an amazing find,” said Todd Disotell, an anthropologist at New York University. Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum of London said the report “gives us the first glimpse of Neanderthal social structures.” Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 14806 - Posted: 12.22.2010

A study by a professor at Dalhousie University indicates students who drink alcohol with energy drinks nearly double the amount of alcohol they consume. The 72 students at the Halifax university who were interviewed for the study said they consumed more than eight drinks on occasions they mixed alcohol and energy drinks. "When they are just drinking alcohol without mixing energy drinks, they reported drinking in the neighbourhood of 4.5 drinks," said Sean Barrett, an associate professor of psychology and psychiatry at Dalhousie. "So it nearly doubled the amount of alcohol they were reportedly consuming." One theory from the study is that energy drinks contain ingredients that release brain chemicals that prolong the initial euphoria that comes with rising blood-alcohol levels and hold off the sedative-like effects when they fall. Barrett said warning labels on energy drinks aren't preventing bars from selling them, and more research is needed. A doctor told student Andrew Monro to give them up because he has a heart murmur. "A lot of my friends are big on Rockstars with vodka in them and Jagerbombs," said Monro. "I find people know that they're risky, but they drink them anyway." Students report that binge drinking is common, but the research shows they don't recognize or aren't deterred by the risk in consuming energy drinks before heading out for a night on the town. © CBC 2010

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 14805 - Posted: 12.20.2010

Childhood brain tumours have fewer genetic mutations than similar tumours in adults, a new genetic mapping study shows. Brain tumours are the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in children. The findings on genetic mutations will be helpful in developing new treatments for medulloblastoma, a brain tumour that mainly affects children, a co-author of the study said. "Now, we must figure out how to put the puzzle together and zero in on parts of the puzzle to develop new therapies," said Dr. Bert Vogelstein of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. In this week's online issue of the journal Science, researchers identified genetic changes in tumours taken from 22 children with medulloblastoma and compared them with normal DNA. The researchers found surgically removed child tumours had five to 10 times fewer genetic changes than did tumour samples from adults. Each child tumour sample had an average of 11 mutations. Among the most frequently mutated genes were those affecting signalling pathways key to normal brain development. Newly identified mutations were found in the MLL2 and MLL3 genes, which are known to help suppress tumours and were not previously implicated in medulloblastoma. © CBC 2010

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 14804 - Posted: 12.20.2010

By ALLEN G. BREED JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — As she walked through the door, Sabrina Parker's big hazel eyes flared with surprise and she raised a hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp. She was a huge fan of the "Twilight" book and movie series, and her friends and family had transformed this greasy garage into a Sweet 16's dream. Homemade strobe lights illuminated walls decorated like the night sky and plastered with cast posters. All around were balloons in red, white and black. An enormous cake, iced to look like the chess board on one of the book jackets, held 16 blazing candles. The crowd began chanting for Sabrina to blow them out. She bent in close and blew, but the flames barely flickered. She straightened up and shook her head. Realizing her distress, Matt Scozzari stepped closer and told her they would do it together. On the count of three, they leaned in and snuffed them out together. In the three months since he'd first asked her out, Matt had noticed small changes in his girlfriend: The shortness of breath, the slurring in her speech, the weight loss. When he'd ask what was going on, Sabrina would just shrug it off as nothing serious. But Sabrina knew her condition was very serious. About a month after she started seeing Matt, Sabrina learned that she had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease — the same illness that had killed her mother and grandmother. A doctor told Sabrina it wouldn't be long before she would have to decide whether to go on a ventilator. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease
Link ID: 14803 - Posted: 12.20.2010

By TRIP GABRIEL STONY BROOK, N.Y. — Rushing a student to a psychiatric emergency room is never routine, but when Stony Brook University logged three trips in three days, it did not surprise Jenny Hwang, the director of counseling. It was deep into the fall semester, a time of mounting stress with finals looming and the holiday break not far off, an anxiety all its own. On a Thursday afternoon, a freshman who had been scraping bottom academically posted thoughts about suicide on Facebook. If I were gone, he wrote, would anybody notice? An alarmed student told staff members in the dorm, who called Dr. Hwang after hours, who contacted the campus police. Officers escorted the student to the county psychiatric hospital. There were two more runs over that weekend, including one late Saturday night when a student grew concerned that a friend with a prescription for Xanax, the anti-anxiety drug, had swallowed a fistful. On Sunday, a supervisor of residence halls, Gina Vanacore, sent a BlackBerry update to Dr. Hwang, who has championed programs to train students and staff members to intervene to prevent suicide. Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 14802 - Posted: 12.20.2010

By Steve Connor, Science Editor New ways of diagnosing and treating dozens of brain disorders could soon emerge from a pioneering study of the chemical and genetic makeup of the vital microscopic gaps between nerve cells that control all brain functions. Scientists announced yesterday that they have identified more than a thousand proteins and their related genes which are involved in transmitting electrical messages from one nerve cell to another across the tiny gaps of the brain's many billions of synapses – switches that control brain activity. The researchers said the feat could be compared to the deciphering of the human genome, because knowing the chemical and genetic makeup of the synapses will lead to important new insights into the nature of the many brain disorders that have so far defied adequate scientific explanation. The study identified 1,461 proteins and their genes that make up the so-called "post-synaptic density" of chemicals that control the transmission of each electrical message from one nerve cell to another. The scientists also found that these proteins could be linked directly with 130 brain diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The post-synaptic density is a complex collection of protein molecules that sticks out from the membrane of the second nerve cell of the synapse which receives the chemically transmitted message from the first nerve cell. Scientists believe that this assemblage of proteins is involved in many if not all major brain diseases. ©independent.co.uk

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 14801 - Posted: 12.20.2010

By GINA KOLATA Marjie Popkin thought she had chemo brain, that fuzzy-headed forgetful state that she figured was a result of her treatment for ovarian cancer. She was not thinking clearly — having trouble with numbers, forgetting things she had just heard. One doctor after another dismissed her complaints. Until recently, since she was, at age 62, functioning well and having no trouble taking care of herself, that might have been the end of her quest for an explanation. Last year, though, Ms. Popkin, still troubled by what was happening to her mind, went to Dr. Michael Rafii, a neurologist at the University of California, San Diego, who not only gave her a thorough neurological examination but administered new tests, like an M.R.I. that assesses the volume of key brain areas and a spinal tap. Then he told her there was something wrong. And it was not chemo brain. It most likely was Alzheimer’s disease. Although she seemed to be in the very early stages, all the indicators pointed in that direction. Until recently, the image of Alzheimer’s was the clearly demented person with the sometimes vacant stare, unable to follow a conversation or remember a promise to meet a friend for lunch. Ms. Popkin is nothing like that. To a casual observer, the articulate and groomed Ms. Popkin seems perfectly fine. She is in the vanguard of a new generation of Alzheimer’s patients, given a diagnosis after tests found signs of the disease years before actual dementia sets in. Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 14800 - Posted: 12.18.2010

By Emily Singer The common perception is that older people are more conservative investors than their younger counterparts. But brain imaging studies combined with economic analysis are causing neuroscientists to question that idea. Recent research suggests that sometimes older people make riskier and less logical investment decisions than younger people, and that specific changes in the brain associated with aging may underlie those decisions. A better understanding of these changes could help scientists figure out what forms of information are most useful to older people seeking to make sound financial decisions—an issue that could soon have a greater social impact than ever before. "Huge demographic changes are taking place all over the world," says Gregory Samanez Larkin, a postdoctoral researcher at Vanderbilt University and codirector of the Scientific Research Network on Decision Neuroscience and Aging, a multidisciplinary, multi-center effort funded by the National Institute on Aging. "Very soon there will be a much larger percentage of people over age 65, and that has economic implications." Financial regulatory agencies are interested in the research, says Larkin, and are funding neuroscientists as they seek ways to help older people make better investment decisions. "The natural idea is that older people are more risk-averse, but they are not uniformly more risk-averse. In some cases, they are more risk-seeking," says Scott Huettel, codirector of the Center for Neuroeconomic Studies at Duke University. © 2010 MIT Technology Review

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Attention
Link ID: 14799 - Posted: 12.18.2010