By Katherine Harmon The most common cause of death of U.S. infants before their first birthday is the nebulous complication known as sudden infant death syndrome (or SIDS), according to the Mayo Clinic. The underlying causes of this condition, in which no immediate cause of death is revealed in an autopsy, remain unknown, vexing scientists and parents alike. Recent research has linked abnormal production of the neurotransmitter serotonin to the occurrence, and a new study underscores that link, reporting that infants who have died of SIDS have about a quarter less serotonin in their brainstems than infants who have died suddenly of other causes or those who have been hospitalized for low oxygen levels. The findings were published online February 2 in Journal of the American Medical Association. Babies with this deadly deficit might not show any differences during waking hours, but in sleep, serotonin plays an important role in regulating temperature and breathing. "Our research suggests that sleep unmasks the brain defect," Hannah Kinney, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and a senior researcher on the study, said in a prepared statement. "When the infant is breathing in the face-down position, he or she may not get enough oxygen. An infant with a normal brainstem would turn his or head and wake up in response. But a baby with an intrinsic abnormality is unable to respond to the stressor." © 2010 Scientific American,

Keyword: Sleep; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 13741 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Tim Wogan Have you ever noticed that the first cowboy to draw his gun in a Hollywood Western is invariably the one to get shot? Nobel prize–winning physicist Niels Bohr did, once arranging mock duels to test the validity of this cinematic curiosity. Following Bohr's example, researchers have now confirmed that people move faster if they are reacting to another person's movements than if they are taking the lead themselves. The findings may one day inspire new therapies for patients with brain damage, the team speculates. Bohr was seemingly unhappy with the Tinseltown explanation that the good guy, who never shoots first, always wins. Legend has it that he procured two toy pistols and enlisted the aid of fellow physicist George Gamow. In a series of duels, Bohr never drew first but won every time. The physicist suggested that the brain responded to danger faster than it carried out a deliberate intention. Experimental psychologist Andrew Welchman of the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom recently learned of the duelling conundrum and also wondered whether it might reveal something about the way our brains are wired to respond to danger. "It would be sensible for the brain to have a reactive system that went a bit faster than a system based on decisions or intentions," says Welchman. Welchman's team organized simulated "gunfights" in the laboratory, with pairs of volunteers competing against each other to push three buttons on a computer console in a particular order. The researchers observed that the time interval between when players removed their hands from the first button and when they pressed the final button was on average 9% shorter for the players who reacted to an opponent moving first. However, those who reacted to a first move were more likely to make an error, presssing the buttons in the wrong order. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Attention; Emotions
Link ID: 13740 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Ewen Callaway Talk about a lousy graduation present. Straight-A students are more likely to develop bipolar disorder than their more mediocre peers, at least in Sweden, according to a new study of more than 700,000 former high-school students. Within 15 years of sitting their final high-school exams, aged 15 and 16, at least 280 of the students were diagnosed with bipolar disorder. After taking into account their parents' income and education – factors that are known to affect exam scores – the highest-achieving students were more than three times more likely to suffer from the mental illness than their average peers. Male overachievers, meanwhile, developed the disease 4.4 times more often than their average male classmates. Good grades don't cause bipolar disorder, but creativity and intelligence could be a reflection of common underlying biological traits, says James MacCabe, an epidemiologist at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, who led the study. The stereotype of the brilliant but tortured artist aside, some aspects of manic episodes could reflect increased intelligence, he says. "People who have a biological predisposition to bipolar disorder have advantages, I suppose you could call them, in that they're able to think clearly, think fast and concentrate," MacCabe says. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Depression
Link ID: 13739 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Nathan Seppa The Lancet has retracted a 1998 study that kindled a firestorm of opposition to vaccines by suggesting that autism arose in a handful of children because they had received measles-mumps-rubella shots. On January 28, the U.K. General Medical Council sealed the fate of the controversial study, saying its selection of participants may have been biased and that lead author Andrew Wakefield committed several breaches of ethics in his work. The Lancet formally retracted the paper February 2. “It has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al. are incorrect,” the journal editors wrote. They weren’t the first to lose faith in the study. Six years ago, 10 of the 13 coauthors on the report got queasy about the findings and disowned the paper, fearing it could damage public health efforts. Since then the Sunday Times of London has done much of the heavy lifting in bringing down the dubious research, publishing details of recruitment bias and ethics questions. The General Medical Council investigated and agreed, leading to the Lancet retraction this week. Formally, the scientific paper no longer exists. In the original study, the researchers analyzed the health of 12 children who had developed signs of autism and colon inflammation shortly after receiving MMR vaccinations. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2010

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 13738 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Alison McCook Over the course of 5 days last summer, an army of researchers and clinicians examined, poked, and prodded 1-year-old Hannah Ostrea at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Experts in neurology, rehabilitation medicine, physical therapy, speech pathology, and anesthesiology gave the little girl an EEG, a test of her heart’s electrical activity (EKG), an MRI, a CT scan, X-rays, and a throat exam (laryngoscopy). All this testing was meant not only to help Hannah but in the hope that her rare disease could reveal something about another condition that affects 1 million Americans: Parkinson’s. Hannah has Gaucher’s disease, and within hours of her birth, it was obvious something was wrong. Looking past her thick head of dark hair, and the fact that she could down an entire bottle of formula in 5 minutes, clinicians quickly saw that her spleen was massive, and her platelet counts were rock bottom. Her liver was expanding—in a few months it looked like she had a volleyball in her stomach. These are the classic signs of Gaucher’s, a rare, recessive genetic disorder in which the body does not produce enough of a lysosomal enzyme that breaks down the fatty substance glucocerebroside, causing it to glob up in cells of the liver, spleen, and other organs—including, sometimes, the brain. But researchers have never seen the combination of mutations Hannah carries, so doctors couldn’t determine if she had the Type 2 or Type 3 form. Children with Type 2 typically die before their third birthdays, while those with Type 3 can live much longer. “They [wouldn’t] give us a prognosis,” Hannah’s mom, Carrie Ostrea, says. “They came out and said that to us. Which is fine by me.” © 1986-2010 The Scientist

Keyword: Parkinsons; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 13737 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By RONI CARYN RABIN Children with the surgically implanted hearing aids called cochlear implants rate their quality of life as highly as children with normal hearing, according to one of the first studies that looked at children as well as their parents. The findings are important, the researchers said, because deaf children often feel socially isolated, have trouble making friends and tend to have low self-esteem as a result. The lead author, Betty A. Loy, said the information would be useful to parents making decisions about cochlear implants for their babies. “They want to know: ‘Is my kid going to be made fun of? Is my kid going to be bullied? How is my kid going to feel about themselves with this apparatus on their head?’ ” said Dr. Loy, of the Dallas Cochlear Implant Program. The researchers asked 84 children with cochlear implants how they felt about themselves, their family lives, their friends and school. Parents were questioned separately, and the responses were compared with those of a control group of 1,501 children the same ages, 8 to 16, with normal hearing. The paper appears in the Feb. 1 issue of Otolaryngology — Head and Neck Surgery. Though the overall quality-of-life scores were very similar to those of the control group, the younger children appeared to be happier than the adolescents but scored their family lives lower than did children with normal hearing. Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Hearing; Robotics
Link ID: 13736 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Taking a daily fish oil capsule can stave off mental illness in those at highest risk, trial findings suggest. A three-month course of the supplement appeared to be as effective as drugs, cutting the rate of psychotic illness like schizophrenia by a quarter. The researchers believe it is the omega-3 in fish oil - already hailed for promoting healthy hearts - that has beneficial effects in the brain. A "natural" remedy would be welcomed, Archives of General Psychiatry says. "The finding that treatment with a natural substance may prevent, or at least delay, the onset of psychotic disorder gives hope that there may be alternatives to antipsychotic drugs," the study authors said. Antipsychotic drugs are potent and can have serious side effects, which puts some people off taking them. Fish oil supplements, on the other hand, are generally well tolerated and easy to take, say the scientists. The international team from Austria, Australia and Switzerland tested the treatment in 81 people deemed to be at particularly high risk of developing psychosis. Their high risk was down to a strong family history of schizophrenia, or similar disorders, or them already showing mild symptoms of these conditions themselves. For the test, half of the individuals took fish oil supplements (1.2 grams of omega-3 fatty acids) for 12 weeks, while the other half took only a dummy pill. Neither group knew which treatment they were receiving. Dr Paul Amminger and his team followed the groups for a year to see how many, if any, went on to develop illness. Two in the fish oil group developed a psychotic disorder compared to 11 in the placebo group. Based on the results, the investigators estimate that one high-risk adult could be protected from developing psychosis for every four treated over a year. They believe the omega-3 fatty acids found in the supplements may alter brain signalling in the brain with beneficial effects. (C)BBC

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 13735 - Posted: 02.02.2010

By EVELYN SHARENOV When the police brought Jane to 3East, the soles of her feet were blistered. Young and pretty beneath a layer of urban grime, she had been picked up for wandering barefoot around Portland, Ore., on a 90-degree August afternoon. She wouldn’t give her name and carried no identification, but went willingly with the young officer. By the time she came upstairs from the emergency room, she had acquired a pair of blue paper slippers, an involuntary psychiatric commitment (she was deemed a danger to herself) and a name: Jane Doe. I greeted her at the locked doors that secured 3East. The chain of custody had passed from a thoughtful cop to a psychiatric nurse. Everyone has a story, but my patients’ histories are often obscured by hallucinations and delusions. In time we can translate their encrypted chatter and make sense of their stories. Jane was my first Ms. Doe. Her story, like her name, was still a mystery. I escorted her to the interview room and brought her a basin of warm water medicated with Epsom salts. She settled her feet in up to her ankles. I introduced myself and asked her name. “Jane,” she said. “Is that your real name?” “Yes, they gave it to me downstairs.” I sat quietly while she smiled, nodded her head and moved her lips, apparently responding to internal voices. She didn’t seem distressed. I was accustomed to patients terrorized by the unpredictable commands and vicious criticism of auditory hallucinations. Jane reminded me of a child chatting with an imaginary playmate. Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 13734 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By NATALIE ANGIER The theory of relativity showed us that time and space are intertwined. To which our smarty-pants body might well reply: Tell me something I didn’t already know, Einstein. Researchers at the University of Aberdeen found that when people were asked to engage in a bit of mental time travel, and to recall past events or imagine future ones, participants’ bodies subliminally acted out the metaphors embedded in how we commonly conceptualized the flow of time. As they thought about years gone by, participants leaned slightly backward, while in fantasizing about the future, they listed to the fore. The deviations were not exactly Tower of Pisa leanings, amounting to some two or three millimeters’ shift one way or the other. Nevertheless, the directionality was clear and consistent. “When we talk about time, we often use spatial metaphors like ‘I’m looking forward to seeing you’ or ‘I’m reflecting back on the past,’ ” said Lynden K. Miles, who conducted the study with his colleagues Louise K. Nind and C. Neil Macrae. “It was pleasing to us that we could take an abstract concept such as time and show that it was manifested in body movements.” The new study, published in January in the journal Psychological Science, is part of the immensely popular field called embodied cognition, the idea that the brain is not the only part of us with a mind of its own. “How we process information is related not just to our brains but to our entire body,” said Nils B. Jostmann of the University of Amsterdam. “We use every system available to us to come to a conclusion and make sense of what’s going on.” Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Attention; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 13733 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Katherine Harmon Despite living in a culture obsessed with physical flawlessness, most people in the U.S. have a relatively realistic perception of their own form and face—blemishes, bulges and all. About one to two percent of the population, however, suffers from a recognized psychological illness, known as body dysmorphic disorder (or BDD), which causes them to be preoccupied with physical defects that they think make them look repugnant. Such tendencies can lead some people to extreme and frequent plastic surgeries and even suicide. A new study used brain scans to see how patients' minds worked when looking at faces—both of others and themselves. The results, published online February 1 in Archives of General Psychiatry, show that people with BDD seem to get hung up on details and hint at a link with obsessive-compulsive disorder. The new case-control study used functional magnetic-resonance imaging (fMRI) to study brain activity among 33 people (17 control subjects and 16 with BDD) as the subjects looked at photos of their face and that of a familiar celebrity. Previous research and clinical observation had found that people with BDD tend to "focus primarily on details of their appearance at the expense of global or configural aspects," the researchers wrote. So following this lead, the researchers (led by Jamie Feusner, of the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles) showed subjects standard photos as well as altered versions: one in which only the details remained and another in which only basic, blurred information remained. © 2010 Scientific American,

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 13732 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Daniel Elkan TWO polar bears are perched on a block of floating ice. One says to the other: "Do you know, I keep thinking it's Thursday..." To some, this kind of surreal humour is side-splitting. Others are baffled by it and can't even raise a smile. Yet despite the importance of humour to human psychology, it is only the advances in brain imaging during the past decade that have enabled neuroscientists to pin down how the brain reacts when a joke tickles us. Armed with this knowledge, they are now solving the puzzle of why some jokes are funny to some people but leave others cold. So what is a joke, exactly? Most theories agree that one condition is essential: there must be some kind of incongruity between two elements within the joke, which can be resolved in a playful or unexpected way. Take the following exchange from the classic British sitcom Only Fools and Horses, when an anxious "Del Boy" Trotter visits his doctor for a heart check-up. "Do you smoke, Mr Trotter?" asks the doctor. "Not right now, thank you doctor," he responds. The joke's incongruity, of course, lies in the unlikely offer of a cigarette by a doctor to a patient concerned about his heart. It is only once we understand the mismatch that we get the joke. "Humour seems to be a product of humans' ability to make rapid, intuitive judgements" about a situation, followed by "slower, deliberative assessments" which resolve incongruities, says Karli Watson of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 13731 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Ewen Callaway So much for the "hippy chimp". Bonobos, known for their peaceable ways and casual sex, have been caught in the act of cannibalism. An account of a group of wild bonobos consuming a dead infant, published last month, is the first report of cannibalism in these animals – making the species the last of the great apes to reveal a taste for the flesh of their own kind. The account comes from a group of primatologists led by Gottfried Hohmann of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. The team has studied bonobos in the wild at a site in Salonga national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on hundreds of days since 2002. Few were more eventful than 9 and 10 July, 2008. Early on the morning of 9 July, Andrew Fowler spotted an ape known as Olga with her two daughters: 5 or 6-year-old Ophelia, and Olivia, who was three years her junior. "By 8 o'clock Olivia was dead," says Fowler. She showed no obvious traces of blood or bruises, so it seems unlikely she had been killed by other members of her group. Decomposing corpse Fowler's team lost sight of the apes not long afterwards, but early the following day he saw Olga join them carrying Olivia's body, which had already begun to decompose. "It was smelling, limp and wet," he recalls. Olga and seven others spent the rest of the day devouring the corpse. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Emotions; Evolution
Link ID: 13730 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Tina Hesman Saey One small step for skin cells could mean one big leap for regenerative medicine. For the first time, scientists have converted adult cells directly into neurons. If the technique, performed on mouse cells, works for human cells, the achievement may bypass the need to revert a patient’s cells to an embryonic state before producing the type of cell needed to repair damage due to disease or injury. Researchers at Stanford University transformed skin fibroblast cells from mice into working neurons by inserting genes that encode transcription factors. Transcription factors are proteins that help regulate gene activity, usually by turning genes on. To convert skin cells into neurons, only three genes for regulatory proteins needed to be added, the team reported online January 27 in Nature. The three transcription factors, called Ascl1, Brn2 and Myt1l, normally appear while new neurons are being born. Scientists previously thought that this type of flexibility required taking cells several steps backward in development to become pluripotent stem cells, which are capable of adopting nearly any identity. Both embryonic stem cells and other pluripotent stem cells that are created in the lab have these capabilities. The new technique skips the stem cell stage entirely, converting one cell type directly into another. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2010

Keyword: Stem Cells; Regeneration
Link ID: 13729 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By LESLEY ALDERMAN MIGRAINES may be right up there with root canals and childbirth as one of life’s more painful experiences. But unlike childbirth or dental surgery — the pain of which can be dulled with standard medications — migraines are notoriously tricky to treat. Those who suffer from these disabling headaches often try a dozen or so medications before they find something that works. What’s more, many migraines do not get properly diagnosed, according to the doctors and researchers I spoke with. That can lead to a lot of extra pain — and expense — for the afflicted. A reason migraines are so maddeningly elusive is that they are not simply bad headaches. They stem from a genetic disorder (yes, you have your parents to blame) that afflicts 36 million Americans and manifests as a group of symptoms that besides head pain may include dizziness, visual disturbances, numbness and nausea. Some of the symptoms resemble those from other disorders, like sinus headaches, epilepsy, eye problems or even strokes. And to further complicate matters, sufferers react in varied ways to medications. “What might be a miracle drug for one person could be a dud for another,” said Dr. Joel Saper, director of the Michigan Headache and Neurological Institute, a treatment and research center in Ann Arbor. “There is no universally effective therapy.” Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 13728 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists have firmed up the evidence that misshapen protein are responsible for brain-wasting diseases by showing how these infectious prions are created. Researchers from the United States and China have artificially created a disease-causing prion using proteins from mice. Prions are proteins that occur naturally in the cells of mammals. Infectious prions are abnormal, misshapen versions of this protein that cause neurodegenerative diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease. The scientists used a mouse prion protein, called PrP, created through genetic engineering in bacterial cells in their experiments. They found that the protein interacts with lipids, the fatty molecules in the structures of cell membranes, and becomes contorted and improperly folded, changing it into a disease-causing prion. Jiyan Ma of Ohio State University said the experiment, published this week in Science, is the strongest evidence yet that prions are the cause of these brain-wasting diseases. "The major thing we showed in this study is that the infectious agent in these diseases is truly a misfolded protein," Ma said in a statement. © CBC 2010

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 13727 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Tiny worm-like creatures that have no males and reproduce by cloning can escape disease by drying up and floating away on the breeze, researchers have found. The rotifers reproduce by laying eggs, but without males, the eggs hatch without being fertilized, a process called parthenogenetic cloning. The offspring are exact genetic clones of their mothers. "Generally, when organisms lose males and start reproducing asexually, they go extinct relatively quickly afterwards," Chris Wilson, a doctoral student in neurobiology at Cornell University, told CBC Radio's As It Happens. Rotifers, though, have diversified into 450 different species and have survived for 30 million years reproducing only by parthenogenesis. This type of asexual reproduction is seen in nematode worms, and in some species of insects, crustaceans, reptiles and sharks. But reproduction exclusively by cloning is rare. Cloning is efficient because it essentially doubles the reproductive output of a species by eliminating the need for two parents. However, since the offspring are genetically identical to their mothers, a parasite or virus can wipe out a large population if it is genetically susceptible to it. Scientists think sex allows a species to swap and recombine genetic material in new ways and avoid such diseases. © CBC 2010

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 13726 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jennifer Viegas Squeaker catfish of all ages communicate with each other by, you guessed it, squeaking, according to a new study in the journal BMC Biology. Previously it was thought that young fish had under-developed hearing organs and could not perceive sounds made by older fish. The findings add to the growing body of evidence that fish have complex communication systems and aren't always the strong, silent types. For the study, researchers studied the catfish Synodontis schoutedeni. This species rubs the spines of its pectoral fins into grooves on its shoulder, thus creating the squeak sound. By placing the fish in a combined fish tank and sound-proof chamber, the scientists were not only able to measure the produced sounds, but also how well each fish heard them. Young and old squeaker catfish were tested. "This study is the first to demonstrate that absolute hearing sensitivity changes as catfish grow up," said the University of Vienna's Walter Lechner. He added, "This contrasts with prior studies on the closely related goldfish and zebrafish, in which no such change could be observed. Furthermore, S. schoutedeni can detect sounds at all stages of development, again contrasting with previous findings." © 2009 Discovery Communications, LLC.

Keyword: Animal Communication; Language
Link ID: 13725 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Emily Sohn There may be a simple way to ease the memory lapses and brain slips that typically accompany old age: Eat more blueberries. In a small study, older adults who drank a couple cups of blueberry juice a day improved their scores on a learning and memory task by 20 percent. Studies in animals have linked blueberries with brain function, but this is one of the first such studies in people. The results, while still preliminary, suggest that blueberries might just live up to their reputation as "superfoods." Among other health benefits, adding the tasty little, blue marbles to your diet could help slow the march of memory decline and possibly even prevent memories from slipping in the first place. "We're getting the first signal in humans that this might work," said Robert Krikorian, a neuropsychologist at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. "There's so much research now suggesting that fruits and vegetables are beneficial. I don't have any qualms about recommending that people eat blueberries." The case for blueberries has been building for more than a decade. In animal studies, older individuals that consume blueberry extract improve their performance on memory tasks, sometimes to the point of being just as sharp as their younger counterparts. © 2009 Discovery Communications, LLC

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 13724 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Ewen Callaway In a feat of cellular alchemy, connective tissue from a mouse's tail has been transformed directly into working brain cells. Ordinarily, so drastic a makeover would require the creation of so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells and then turning these into neurons, an inefficient process that can take weeks. Marius Wernig and colleagues at Stanford University in California discovered that inserting a cocktail of three genes into fibroblasts turns them directly into neurons in just days. "The real surprise was that this conversion is extremely efficient," he says. By many indications, these neurons are the real deal. Under a microscope, they look like a kind of mouse brain cell found in the cortex and they can form synapses to send and receive signals from others. Wernig expects that the cells will integrate into a mouse's brain - an experiment that's in the works. If they do, cells produced using a similar process might one day be used to treat conditions such as Parkinson's disease in humans. Because such cells are derived from adult cells, not pluripotent cells – which have the potential to form a kind of tumour called a teratoma – they might be safer than iPS cells. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Stem Cells; Regeneration
Link ID: 13723 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Katie Moisse You can tell a lot about a person by their face—even their political affiliation, new research claims. In a study published in the January 18 issue of PLoS One, subjects were able to accurately identify candidates from the 2004 and 2006 U.S. Senate elections as either Democrats or Republicans based on black-and-white photos of their faces. And subjects were even able to correctly identify college students as belonging to Democratic or Republican clubs based on their yearbook photos. To investigate the basis of these judgments, subjects were asked to rate photos of faces on a seven-point scale assessing personality traits such as assertiveness, maturity, likeability and trustworthiness. Subjects consistently associated Democrats with warmth (likeable and trustworthy) and Republicans with power (dominant and mature). These findings were independent of the gender of the person in the photo. The authors concluded that people possess "a general and imperfect" ability to infer political affiliation based on facial appearance, which is related to stereotypes about Democrat and Republican personalities. The ability to surmise other perceptually ambiguous traits, such as sexual orientation and religious group membership, has been reported in similar studies. © 2010 Scientific American,

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 13722 - Posted: 06.24.2010