Taking a mid-afternoon nap may prepare the brain to learn new things, early research suggests. Researchers in the U.S. studied 39 young adults who were divided into two groups. At noon, study participants took a memory test that required them to remember faces linked to names. Of those in the study, 20 took a nap for 100 minutes. All of the volunteers were then retested at 6 p.m. Those who stayed awake did about 10 per cent worse on the tests compared with those who napped, Matthew Walker of University of California at Berkeley said. He presented the preliminary findings Sunday at the American Association of the Advancement of Science meeting in San Diego. The more hours we spend awake, the more sluggish the brain becomes, the study suggests. Normally, the ability to learn declines between noon and 6 p.m., but a nap seemed to fight off the decline. "After about 1:30, I notice my last class of the day I just want the day to be over," Marquis Majore said during reading week at the University of Regina. "It's hard to concentrate and stay focused in class." Previous data from the same team showed pulling an all-nighter also reduces the brain's ability to cram in new facts by nearly 20 per cent. Walker's team showed that fact-based memories are temporarily stored in a region of the brain called the hippocampus before being sent to the brain's prefrontal cortex, which may have more storage space. © CBC 2010

Keyword: Sleep; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 13801 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Raymond A. Levy and J. Stuart Ablon A remarkably important event has just occurred in the world of psychology: A leading, peer-reviewed journal has published the strongest evidence yet that psychodynamic psychotherapy -- “talk therapy” -- works. In fact, it not only works, it keeps working long after the sessions stop. Full disclosure: We report this not as disinterested observers, but as psychotherapists and researchers on the process and efficacy of therapy. Our book, “Handbook of Evidence-Based Psychodynamic Psychotherapy,” summarized the body of research through last year and another will follow late this year. Still, we can state as fact: The movement to establish an evidence base for psychodynamic therapy has taken a giant new step forward. This new academic paper reports positive findings about the form of therapy that began with Sigmund Freud and has historically been utilized more than any other psychotherapy treatment. What does modern psychodynamic psychotherapy look like? Its distinctive features include several basic building blocks: A focus on emotion and relationships; identification of recurring themes and patterns; discussion of past experiences; a focus on the therapy relationship; exploration of attempts to avoid distressing thoughts and feelings; and exploration of fantasy life. Overall, the paper found, psychodynamic psychotherapy demonstrates efficacy at least equivalent to other psychotherapy treatments commonly labeled as “empirically supported” and “evidence based.” And in fact, it notes, psychodynamic therapy's "active ingredients" are shared by many other forms of therapy as well. © 2010 Scientific American,

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 13800 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Laura Sanders SAN DIEGO — Disrupting a gene implicated in schizophrenia early in development leads to brain anomalies and behavioral defects later in life, a new study in mice finds. The results, presented February 22 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, may help researchers understand how early developmental problems contribute to schizophrenia — a disease that typically shows up after adolescence. In humans, mutations in a gene called DISC1 cause flaws in networks of brain cells early in development, scientists believe, long before symptoms of schizophrenia appear. Researchers led by Akira Sawa of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore developed a new technique to diminish DISC1 activity in mice that are still developing in the womb. The method temporarily reduces DISC1 activity in brain cells in the mice’s prefrontal cortex, a region known to be important for schizophrenia. Sawa and colleagues disturbed DISC1 very early in development and tested the mice later. The mice’s brain chemistry and behavior seemed normal at 28 days. But at 56 days, Sawa and colleagues saw a big change. “After adolescence, we start to observe a dramatic difference in behavior, neurochemistry and information processing,” Sawa says. Mice that had reduced DISC1 activity in the womb had lower levels of dopamine in the prefrontal cortex at 56 days, the team found. DISC1 might be interfering with the normal development of dopamine-producing neurons, leading to the reduction of the chemical signal, Sawa says. What’s more, these mice performed worse on behavioral measures that require information processing. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2010

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 13799 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Victoria Gill Teaching stroke patients to sing "rewires" their brains, helping them recover their speech, say scientists. By singing, patients use a different area of the brain from the area involved in speech. If a person's "speech centre" is damaged by a stroke, they can learn to use their "singing centre" instead. Researchers presented these findings at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Diego. An ongoing clinical trial, they said, has shown how the brain responds to this "melodic intonation therapy". Gottfried Schlaug, a neurology professor at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, US, led the trial. The therapy is already established as a medical technique. Researchers first used it when it was discovered that stroke patients with brain damage that left them unable to speak were still able to sing. Professor Schlaug explained that his was the first study to combine this therapy with brain imaging - "to show what is actually going on in the brain" as patients learn to sing their words. Most of the connections between brain areas that control movement and those that control hearing are on the left side of the brain. "But there's a sort of corresponding hole on the right side," said Professor Schlaug. For some reason, it's not as endowed with these connections, so the left side is used much more in speech. If you damage the left side, the right side has trouble [fulfilling that role]." But as patients learn to put their words to melodies, the crucial connections form on the right side of their brains. Previous brain imaging studies have shown that this "singing centre" is overdeveloped in the brains of professional singers. (C)BBC

Keyword: Stroke; Language
Link ID: 13798 - Posted: 02.23.2010

By Matt Walker The first monogamous amphibian has been discovered living in the rainforest of South America. Genetic tests have revealed that male and females of one species of Peruvian poison frog remain utterly faithful. More surprising is the discovery that just one thing - the size of the pools of water in which they lay their tadpoles - prevents the frogs straying. That constitutes the best evidence yet documented that monogamy can have a single cause, say scientists. Details of the frog's sex life is published in the journal The American Naturalist. "This is the first discovery of a truly monogamous amphibian," says biologist Dr Jason Brown, then of East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, who made the discovery with colleagues Dr Victor Morales and Professor Kyle Summers. The monogamous frog species Ranitomeya imitator, known as the mimic poison frog, is already known to science. In recent years, Dr Brown and his colleagues have extensively studied many of its habits, which were filmed by the BBC natural history documentary series Life in Cold Blood. After mating, a female mimic poison frog lays her eggs on the surface of leaves. The male frog then takes away the tadpoles that hatch, carrying them one by one on his back to pools of water which collect in bromeliad leaves high up in the branches of trees. Each of half a dozen babies are put into their own tiny pool, which he then looks after. When the tadpoles become hungry, the male calls to his female partner who arrives to lay a non-fertile egg in each pool, which the tadpole eats as food. But while the male and female frogs appear to act in unison, new experiments have revealed the extent of their fidelity. (C)BBC

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 13797 - Posted: 02.22.2010

By Randolph E. Schmid SAN DIEGO - Words and music, such natural partners that it seems obvious they go together. Now science is confirming that those abilities are linked in the brain, a finding that might even lead to better stroke treatments. Studies have found overlap in the brain's processing of language and instrumental music, and new research suggests that intensive musical therapy may help improve speech in stroke patients, researchers said Saturday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In addition, researchers said, music education can help children with developmental dyslexia or autism more accurately use speech. People who have suffered a severe stroke on the left side of the brain and cannot speak can sometimes learn to communicate through singing, Gottfried Schlaug, associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School told the meeting. "Music making is a multisensory experience, activating links to several parts of the brain," Schlaug said. Schlaug showed a video of one patient who could only make meaningless sounds learning to say "I am thirsty," by singing the words, and another was able to sing "happy birthday." Copyright 2010 The Associated Press

Keyword: Hearing; Stroke
Link ID: 13796 - Posted: 02.22.2010

by Michael Torrice SAN DIEGO—Don’t get too close to a tired teen; you could start losing sleep as well. When one teenager starts sleeping less, her friends and others in her social circle soon lose sleep, too, according to new research presented here today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (which publishes ScienceNOW). This lack of sleep not only produces groggy high-school students but also can lead to drug use, the researchers reported. Our social networks—the ones in real life and on Facebook—can influence our behaviors and moods. Political scientist James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, has studied these effects and previously found that obesity, smoking, and even happiness can spread through networks of people solely based on their relationships. Today, Fowler described his study of a network of more than 8000 seventh- to 12th-grade students and their sleeping and pot-smoking habits. He and colleagues mapped an entangled web of connections between each student and his or her friends. In one of these friend webs, a gang of sleepless boys dominated the middle of the jumble, where the most connected kids landed—the so-called “cool” kids. He and his colleagues found that the more central a teen landed on the map, the greater chance that he or she got less than 7 hours of sleep per night. Drug use was also contagious, the team found. Each pot-smoking friend increased the chance that a student used marijuana by 42%. Both sleepless and drug-use contagions could still be felt four-degrees of separation away, influencing a friend of a friend of a friend’s friend. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Sleep; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 13795 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Laura Sanders SAN DIEGO — Rigid pathways in brain cell connections buckle and break when stretched, scientists report, a finding that could aid in the understanding of exactly what happens when traumatic brain injuries occur. Up to 20 percent of combat soldiers and an estimated 1.4 million U.S. civilians sustain traumatic brain injuries each year. But the mechanics behind these injuries have remained mysterious. New research, described February 19 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, suggests exactly how a blow to the brain disrupts this complex organ. The brain “is not like the heart. If you lose a certain percentage of your heart muscle, then you’ll have a certain cardiac output,” says Geoffrey Manley, a neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco. Rather, the brain is an organ of connections. Car crashes, bomb blasts and falls can damage these intricate links, and even destroying a small number of them can cause devastating damage. “You can have very small lesions in very discrete pathways which can have phenomenal impact,” says Manley, who did not participate in the study. One of the challenges brain injury researchers face, he says, is that “we’re not really embracing this idea of functional connectivity. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2010

Keyword: Stress; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 13794 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by David Grimm, SAN DIEGO—Are dolphins as smart as people? And if so, shouldn't we be treating them a bit better than we do now? Those were the topics of discussion at a session on the ethical and policy implications of dolphin intelligence here today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (which publishes ScienceNOW). First up, just how smart are dolphins? Researchers have been exploring the question for three decades, and the answer, it turns out, is pretty darn smart. In fact, according to panelist Lori Marino, an expert on cetacean neuroanatomy at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, they may be Earth's second smartest creature (next to humans, of course). Marino bases her argument on studies of the dolphin brain. Bottlenose dolphins have bigger brains than humans (1600 grams versus 1300 grams), and they have a brain-to-body-weight ratio greater than great apes do (but lower than humans). "They are the second most encephalized beings on the planet," says Marino. But it's not just size that matters. Dolphins also have a very complex neocortex, the part of the brain responsible for problem solving, self awareness, and variety of other traits we associate with human intelligence. And researchers have found gangly neurons called Von Economo neurons, which in humans and apes have been linked to emotions, social cognition, and even theory of mind—the ability to sense what others are thinking. Overall, said Marino, "dolphin brains stack up quite well to human brains." © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Intelligence; Animal Rights
Link ID: 13793 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Erin Allday, Chronicle Staff Writer Regardless of whether "Avatar" wins the best picture Oscar next month, 3-D technology seems to be here to stay - and the people who produce that technology should be taking steps now to make it comfortable to watch, doctors say. Even the most modern, realistic 3-D technology can cause vision fatigue after extended viewing, according to a UC Berkeley optometrist who has studied how people see in 3-D, both in real life and in movie theaters. The good news is that the people making movies these days are working closely with doctors and other vision experts to make sure the entertainment is easy on the eyes. "The message is definitely getting out that we have to do some things to help people have a good experience," said Martin Banks, a professor of optometry at UC Berkeley. In real life, objects appear naturally in 3-D because our two eyes see two slightly different images that the brain forms into one central view. The same concept works with 3-D technology, in that two images are flashed at us - one for the left eye and one for the right eye. The 3-D glasses viewers wear help distinguish which image is meant for which eye. But with 3-D technology, images may seem to appear in front of the screen, or at a distance beyond the screen, and the potential for eye fatigue comes from the brain trying to figure out where to focus the eyes. We're used to focusing on something exactly where we perceive it to be - hold your finger in front of your face, and it quickly comes into focus. In a 3-D movie, if a hand appears to reach toward us, our brain has to figure out that it needs to focus on the image of a hand on the screen, not the image in front of our face. © 2010 Hearst Communications Inc.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 13792 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Spotting athletes who are still unfit to return to action days or weeks after a blow to the head could be made simpler by a new test. The check, devised by University of Michigan scientists, looks for sluggish reaction times. Those too slow to catch a falling object - a weighted cylinder - are likely to have concussion. A UK expert warned athletes should expect a three-week layoff after concussion. Minor head injuries are part and parcel of many of the most popular sports in the UK, particularly contact sports such as rugby. Many of these concussions go undetected by the player or their coaches. And even when spotted, there is some uncertainty as to when the player should be allowed to compete again. The after-effects can linger for several days, even after other more obvious symptoms such as headaches, dizziness and confusion have abated. The Michigan test involved 209 young male and female footballers and wrestlers. They were asked to catch the weighted cylinder when it was dropped by the coach, and their speed of response was recorded. Then, during the season, if any of them suffered a concussion, the test was repeated a few days afterwards. Seven of the athletes had a longer reaction time - on average 15% longer. Dr James Eckner, who devised the test, said: "Because of its simplicity and low cost, this test may work well with youth athletes, where there is limited access to computerised testing of reaction time." He will showcase his work at the American Academy of Neurology's 62nd annual meeting in Toronto in April. (C)BBC

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 13791 - Posted: 02.20.2010

LONDON - When it comes to the placebo effect, it really may be mind over matter, a new analysis suggests. In a review of recent research, international experts say there is increasing evidence that fake treatments, or placebos, have an actual biological effect in the body. The doctor-patient relationship, plus the expectation of recovery, may sometimes be enough to change a patient’s brain, body and behavior, experts write. The review of previous research on placebos was published online Friday in Lancet, the British medical journal. “It’s not that placebos or inert substances help,” said Linda Blair, a Bath-based psychologist and spokeswoman for the British Psychological Society. Blair was not linked to the research. “It’s that people’s belief in inert substances help.” While doctors have long recognized that placebos can help patients feel better, they weren’t sure if the treatments sparked any physical changes. In the Lancet review, researchers cite studies where patients with Parkinson’s disease were given dummy pills. That led their brains to release dopamine, a feel-good chemical, and also resulted in other changes in brain activity. “When you think you’re going to get a drug that helps, your brain reacts as if it’s getting relief,” said Walter Brown, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Brown and Tufts University. “But we don’t know how that thought that you’re going to get better actually translates into something happening in the brain.” © 2010 The Associated Press

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Parkinsons
Link ID: 13790 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By SINDYA N. BHANOO If an expectant mother knew that dangerous creatures lurked around her, and knew also that she wouldn’t be around to take care of her young, she might be stressed. And if she had a way to warn her young before they were born, surely she would. Human mothers cannot do this, to the best of our knowledge. But pregnant crickets, it appears, do have the ability to forewarn. This is especially useful since crickets abandon their young after birth. Researchers from the University of South Carolina Upstate and Indiana State University placed pregnant crickets in an enclosure where they were stalked, but not eaten, by a wolf spider, whose fangs had been coated with wax to protect the crickets. The young of the spider-exposed mothers turned out to be more predator-savvy than those with mothers who were not exposed to the wolf spider; they stayed hidden longer, and were more likely to freeze when they encountered spider feces or spider silk. In a second experiment, the researchers placed the juvenile crickets in an arena with a starving wolf spider with fully functioning fangs. Eventually, the spider got all the crickets, but the young born from spider-exposed mothers lasted longer in the arena of death. The research was published last month in The American Naturalist. Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 13789 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Robert Emery and Jim Coan When people have their feelings hurt, what is actually happening inside the body to cause the physical pain in the chest? —Josh Ceddia, Melbourne, Australia Terms such as “heartache” and “gut wrenching” are more than mere metaphors: they describe the experience of both physical and emotional pain. When we feel heartache, for example, we are experiencing a blend of emotional stress and the stress-induced sensations in our chest—muscle tightness, increased heart rate, abnormal stomach activity and shortness of breath. In fact, emotional pain involves the same brain regions as physical pain, suggesting the two are inextricably connected. But how do emotions trigger physical sensations? Scientists do not know, but recently pain researchers uncovered a possible pathway from mind to body. According to a 2009 study from the University of Arizona and the University of Maryland, activity in a brain region that regulates emotional reactions called the anterior cingulate cortex helps to explain how an emotional insult can trigger a biological cascade. During a particularly stressful experience, the anterior cingulate cortex may respond by increasing the activity of the vagus nerve—the nerve that starts in the brain stem and connects to the neck, chest and abdomen. When the vagus nerve is overstimulated, it can cause pain and nausea. Heartache is not the only way emotional and physical pain intersect in our brain. © 2010 Scientific American,

Keyword: Emotions; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 13788 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Aria Pearson You may hate forgetting things, but healthy brains need to be able to overwrite old memories. Now a protein responsible for forgetting has been identified in flies, and it's been used to speed up and slow down the erasure of painful memories. It is still unknown if the protein plays a similar role in people. But the finding is intriguing because the natural process of memory decay remains shrouded in mystery. "We know very, very little about what causes normal forgetting," says James McGaugh, a neurobiologist at the University of California, Irvine, who was not involved in the new work. If the protein does play a similar role in humans, it could lead to new techniques for either enhancing or erasing memory. Until now approaches to erasing unwanted memories have largely focussed on interfering with the laying-down of memories, rather than our natural ability to forget. After learning that some humans with cognitive disabilities have mutations in genes that control the activity of a protein called Rac, Yi Zhong and his colleagues at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York reasoned that the protein might be involved in memory. They tested this idea in fruit flies by using genetic engineering to enhance or repress the activity of Rac in the parts of the flies' brains associated with short-term memory. Then they measured how quickly the flies' memories seemed to disappear. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 13787 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Carl Zimmer Fear: See also dread, panic, terror, fright, trepidation, anxiety, worry, phobia, disquietude, angst, foreboding, the creeps, the jitters, the heebie-jeebies, freaking out. Any halfway decent thesaurus will provide a long list of synonyms for fear, and yet they are not very good substitutes. No one would confuse having the creeps with being terrified. It is strange that we have so many words for fear, when fear is such a unitary, primal feeling. Perhaps all those synonyms are just linguistic inventions. Perhaps, if we looked inside our brains, we would just find plain old fear. That is certainly how things seemed in the early 1900s, when scientists began studying how we come to be scared of things. They built on Ivan Pavlov’s classic experiments on dogs, in which Pavlov would ring a bell before giving his dogs food. Eventually they learned to associate the bell with food and began to salivate in anticipation. Psychologists set up experiments to see if the same kind of learning could instill fear as well. The implicit assumption was that fear, like hunger, was a simple provoked response. In one of the most famous (and infamous) of these experiments, American psychologist John Watson decided to see if he could teach an 11-month-old baby named Albert to become scared of arbitrary things. He presented Albert with a rat, and every time the baby reached out to touch it, Watson hit a steel bar with a hammer, producing a horrendous clang. After several rounds with the rat and the bar, Watson then brought out the rat on its own. “The instant the rat was shown, the baby began to cry,” Watson wrote in a 1920 report.

Keyword: Emotions; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 13786 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Greg Miller SAN DIEGO—The hormone progesterone is best known for its work in the female reproductive system, where it plays various roles in supporting pregnancy. But starting next month, it will be the focus of a phase III clinical trial for traumatic brain injury (TBI). Researchers hope an infusion of progesterone given within a few hours of a car accident or other trauma will help prevent brain damage, said the trial’s principal investigator, David Wright of Emory University in Atlanta. He described the upcoming trial here today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (which publishes ScienceNOW). The rationale for the trial springs from a chance finding made more than a quarter of century ago. While studying the effects of head injuries in rats, Emory researcher Donald Stein noticed that females had fewer ill effects than did males. Females who were at the progesterone peak of their menstrual cycle did even better. Follow-up studies with other animals also pointed to neuroprotective effects of progesterone, which is present in both the male and the female brain. In recent years, two small clinical trials suggested that progesterone can reduce mortality and disability after TBI in people. The new trial will provide a sterner test. It aims to enroll 1140 patients at 17 centers across the United States. Each patient will receive an infusion of progesterone starting within 4 hours of his or her injury and lasting 4 days. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Stroke; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 13785 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Sharon Begley | NEWSWEEK By now, it should come as no surprise when scientists discover yet another case of experience changing the brain. From the sensory information we absorb to the movements we make, our lives leave footprints on the bumps and fissures of our cortex, so much so that experiences can alter "hard-wired" brain structures. Through rehab, stroke patients can coax a region of the motor cortex on the opposite side of the damaged region to pinch-hit, restoring lost mobility; volunteers who are blindfolded for just five days can reprogram their visual cortex to process sound and touch. Still, scientists have been surprised at how deeply culture—the language we speak, the values we absorb—shapes the brain, and are rethinking findings derived from studies of Westerners. To take one recent example, a region behind the forehead called the medial prefrontal cortex supposedly represents the self: it is active when we ("we" being the Americans in the study) think of our own identity and traits. But with Chinese volunteers, the results were strikingly different. The "me" circuit hummed not only when they thought whether a particular adjective described themselves, but also when they considered whether it described their mother. The Westerners showed no such overlap between self and mom. Depending whether one lives in a culture that views the self as autonomous and unique or as connected to and part of a larger whole, this neural circuit takes on quite different functions. "Cultural neuroscience," as this new field is called, is about discovering such differences. Some of the findings, as with the "me/mom" circuit, buttress longstanding notions of cultural differences. For instance, it is a cultural cliché that Westerners focus on individual objects while East Asians pay attention to context and background (another manifestation of the individualism-collectivism split). Sure enough, when shown complex, busy scenes, Asian-Americans and non-Asian--Americans recruited different brain regions. The Asians showed more activity in areas that process figure-ground relations—holistic context—while the Americans showed more activity in regions that recognize objects. © 2010 Newsweek, Inc.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Evolution
Link ID: 13784 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Being happy and staying positive may help ward off heart disease, a study suggests. US researchers monitored the health of 1,700 people over 10 years, finding the most anxious and depressed were at the highest risk of the disease. They could not categorically prove happiness was protective, but said people should try to enjoy themselves. But experts suggested the findings may be of limited use as an individual's approach to life was often ingrained. At the start of the study, which was published in the European Heart Journal, participants were assessed for emotions ranging from hostility and anxiousness to joy, enthusiasm and contentment. They were given a rating on a five-point scale to score their level of positive emotions. By the end of the analysis, some 145 had developed heart disease - fewer than one in 10. But for each rise in the happiness scale there was a 22% lower risk of developing heart disease. The team believes happier people may have better sleeping patterns, be less liable to suffer stress and be more able to move on from upsetting experiences - all of which can put physical strain on the body. Lead researcher Dr Karina Davidson admitted more research was needed into the link, but said she would still recommend that people try to develop a more positive outlook. She said all too often people just waited for their "two weeks of vacation to have fun" when instead they should seek enjoyment each day. If you enjoy reading novels, but never get around to it, commit to getting 15 minutes or so of reading in. If walking or listening to music improves you mood, get those activities in your schedule. Essentially spending a few minutes each day truly relaxed and enjoying yourself is certainly good for your mental health and may improve your physical health as well." (C)BBC

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 13783 - Posted: 02.18.2010

Amber Dance Scientists in the United States must publicly discuss the merits of animal research if they are to win over the public and neutralize the threat from activists. That was the view of animal-research supporters at a landmark panel discussion yesterday, which saw them come face to face with anti-vivisectionists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In recent years, University of California scientists have faced threats of violence from animal-rights activists, with firebomb incidents at the Los Angeles and Santa Cruz campuses. But Colin Blakemore, a neuroscientist at the University of Oxford, UK, and a vocal supporter of animal research who has faced numerous attacks from activists, said that scientists in the United Kingdom have made progress in dealing with the problem by engaging with the media and the public. "The only way to breakthroughs is to have the courage to be open," Blakemore told Nature. But examples of such dialogue have been few and far between in the United States. "Scientists for a long time have not fulfilled society's expectations of being fully engaged about what they're doing," said J. David Jentsch, a UCLA neuroscientist and founder of the UCLA Pro-Test for Science animal-research advocacy group, before the event. "We really felt the time was ripe." © 2010 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 13782 - Posted: 06.24.2010