By Christof Koch We take the magical gift of consciousness for granted. From the time I awaken until I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep, I am flooded with conscious sensations. And contrary to assertions made by philosophers, novelists and other literati, by and large this stream of consciousness does not relate to quiet self-reflection and introspective thoughts. No, most of it is filled with raw sensations. Two weeks ago a friend and I climbed a sea cliff above the Pacific surf at Malibu, Calif. When I am on the sharp end of the rope, my inner critic—that voice in my head reminding me of deadlines, worries and my inadequacies—is gone, is silent. My mind is all out there—conscious of the exact orientation, shape and texture of the rock, looking for tiny indentations where I can get purchase for my fingers and toes, always aware of how high I am above the last bolt. One moment I am exquisitely aware of my feet on all too smooth rock, reaching upward with my left hand for a handhold. The next I am airborne, my right hand bloody, my right rib cage aching. After catching my breath and shouting to my anxious belayer that I’m okay, I am filled with adrenaline for having survived yet another fall, can’t contain my enthusiasm, and scream. Today only the bruised rib remains as a testament to how much of the stream of consciousness is pure sensation. Whether you are weaving on a motorbike through flowing traffic, running in the mountains, dancing to fast rock and roll, reading an engaging book, making love or debating with your friend, your eyes, ears, skin and body sensors paint an engrossing picture of the outside, including your own body, onto your mind’s canvas. © 1996-2009 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 12443 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Coco Ballantyne Drugs traditionally used to treat depression are also effective in easing widespread pain, sleep disturbances and dismal moods associated with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS), according to a large-scale analysis published today in JAMA The Journal of the American Medical Association. The study confirms earlier research about the meds' effect on symptoms associated with this mysterious disease. Fibromyalgia, an often overlooked disorder believed to cause widespread muscle pain, sleep disturbances, depression and fatigue, affects up to 12 million people (4 percent of the U.S. population), nearly 11 million of them women. The degree of debilitation caused by the disease ranges "from very little to total," says Roland Staud, a professor of medicine at the University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville, adding that he has known some patients who have been bedridden for as long as a year because of symptoms, which typically appear between ages 40 and 60 and may last for the remainder of sufferers' lives. Researchers do not know the cause of FMS and there is currently no cure. But psychiatrist Leslie Arnold, director of the Women's Health Research Program at the University of Cinncinnati's College of Medicine, says that both genetics and stress appear to play a role. Only two drugs have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat fibromyalgia—Cymbalta made by Eli Lilly (one of the antidepressants reviewed in this study) and Pfizer's Lyrica, an Rx to control seizures and pain. There is no definitive test for fibromyalgia, which doctors typically diagnose based on symptoms, including chronic widespread pain. © 1996-2009 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 12442 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Jim Giles SOME of the hottest results in the nascent field of social neuroscience, in which emotions and behavioural traits are linked to activity in a particular region of the brain, may be inflated and in some cases entirely spurious. Some experiments correlating brain regions to feelings used a method that inflated the apparent strength of the link So say psychologist Hal Pashler at the University of California, San Diego, and his colleagues, who examined more than 50 studies that relied on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans, many published in high-profile journals, and questioned the authors about their methods. Pashler's team say that in most of the studies, which linked brain regions to feelings including social rejection, neuroticism and jealousy, researchers interpreted their data using a method that inflates the strength of the link between a brain region and the emotion or behaviour. The claim is disputed by at least two of the critiqued groups. Both argue that Pashler has misunderstood their results and that their conclusions are backed by other studies. In many of the studies, researchers scan volunteers' brains as they complete a task designed to elicit a particular emotion. They then divide the images from the scans into cubes called voxels, which can each contain millions of neurons, and attempt to correlate the activity of particular voxels with emotional changes reported by the volunteers. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 12441 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Devin Powell STROKE the belly of a newborn female rat for a few hours a day and chemical "caps" will appear on its DNA that make its brain look more like that of a male. This extraordinary finding suggests that some biological differences between male and female brains may not be decided during fetal development, but instead appear after they are born. According to traditional thinking, sex-specific differences in mammals are determined in the womb by genes on the X and Y chromosomes, with the prenatal hormones the fetus is exposed to also playing a role. Recently, however, it has become clear that the behaviour of a mother rat towards her offspring can cause sex-specific changes. For example, mother rats spend more time licking and grooming their sons, which previous studies suggest is necessary for their genitalia to form properly. To see if a mother's touch might also cause sex-specific changes in rats' brains, Anthony Auger at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and colleagues stroked baby female rats, giving them the attention normally reserved for males. They found that the number of oestrogen receptors in the hypothalamus of stroked females was lower than in unstroked females, and similar to levels found in males. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 12440 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Rachel Zelkowitz From fashion trends to political movements, nothing is more human than following the crowd. Although history documents our lemminglike tendencies, neuroscience has been slower to explain them. Now, researchers have pinpointed a brain circuit that makes us want to act like our peers. Psychologist Solomon Asch of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania highlighted the power of conformity in a landmark 1951 study. He showed that adults will change their opinions on objective facts--whether one line drawn on a piece of paper is longer than another, for example--to mesh with the group's opinion, even if the group is obviously wrong. Since then, researchers have suggested that conformity helps people gain social acceptance and feel confident that their opinions or perceptions are correct. Other experiments have shown that bucking consensus, in contrast, can cause anxiety and confusion. The findings suggested a role for the brain's reinforcement learning system, says Vasily Klucharev, a social neuroscientist at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Previous studies have shown that the rostral cingulate zone and the nucleus accumbens, areas of the brain believed to be part of that learning system, activate when people make wrong predictions in a betting game and prompt a change in strategy. Klucharev and his colleagues wanted to determine whether the same areas are triggered when an individual's choice doesn't conform to the group's. © 2009 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 12439 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The vast majority of prisoners who could benefit from drug abuse treatment do not receive it, despite two decades of research that demonstrate its effectiveness, according to researchers at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health. In a report published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, NIDA scientists note that about half of all prisoners (including some sentenced to non-drug-related offenses) are dependent on drugs, yet less than 20 percent of inmates suffering from drug abuse or dependence receive formal treatment. "Treating drug abusing offenders improves public health and safety," said NIDA Director and report co-author Dr. Nora D. Volkow. "In addition to the devastating social consequences for individuals and their families, drug abuse exacts serious health effects, including increased risk for infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C — and treatment for addiction can help prevent their spread. Providing drug abusers with treatment also makes it less likely that these abusers will return to the criminal justice system." The authors of the report suggest that the criminal justice system is in a unique position to encourage drug abusers to enter and remain in treatment, thereby disrupting the vicious cycle of drug use and crime. In fact, most studies indicate that outcomes for those who are legally pressured to enter treatment are as good as or better than outcomes for those who entered treatment without legal pressure, the researchers noted.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 12438 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Ewen Callaway Women with high levels of oestrogen may adopt a simple relationship strategy more often associated with men: love 'em and leave 'em. New research suggests that young women who produce naturally high levels of an oestrogen compound linked to fertility are more prone to hop from man to man, as well as cheat on their current partner. They also see themselves as more attractive than other women. "These women are willing to trade up when the opportunity arises and continue to extract these lucrative resources from men when they can," says Kristina Durante, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Texas in Austin, who led the study. She thinks the behaviour could be an adaptation to the high costs of giving birth. "For women it's all about the resources that we need. If you're going to be getting knocked up there's a significant cost," she says. Previous research had shown that women who produce high levels of an oestrogen hormone called oestradiol are perceived as more attractive and mother more children than women with lower amounts of the sex hormone. Oestradiol levels also wax and wane across a woman's ovulatory cycle - generally corresponding to fertility and interest in sex, Durante says. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 12437 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Some forms of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can slightly shrink the brains of post-menopausal women, a US study has suggested. The findings may help explain previous work linking HRT to an increased risk of memory loss and dementia. A team led by researchers at Wake Forest University carried out brain scans on 1,400 women aged 71 to 89 who took part in an earlier HRT trial. But UK experts said the study, published in Neurology, had flaws. Significant numbers of women take hormones, including the female sex hormone oestrogen, to reduce the unpleasant symptoms of the menopause, such as hot flushes, mood changes, and thinning of the bones. However, research has linked HRT to a raised risk of some forms of cancer. The latest study found two key areas of the brain involved in thinking and memory were smaller in women who had taken HRT than in those who had been given a "dummy" placebo pill. Brain volume was 2.37 cubic centimetres lower in the frontal lobe and 0.10 cubic centimetres lower in the hippocampus. However, the researchers admit they were unable to carry out brain scans before the women began taking HRT. And the results suggest shrinkage was most pronounced in women who may already have started to develop memory problems before they started taking hormones. Lead researcher Dr Susan Resnick, from the US National Institute on Ageing, said: "Our findings suggest that hormone therapy in older post-menopausal women has a negative effect on brain structures important in maintaining normal memory functioning. However, this negative effect was most pronounced in women who already may have had some memory problems before using hormone therapy, suggesting that the therapy may have accelerated a neurodegenerative disease process that had already begun." (C)BBC

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 12436 - Posted: 01.13.2009

People who suffer interrupted sleep, have trouble nodding off or who snooze less than seven hours a night are at greater risk of colds, suggests a U.S. study. While the relationship between poor sleep and a poorly-functioning immune system is well-documented, the study is the first evidence that even minor sleep disturbances can influence the body's reaction to cold viruses. A multi-university study of 153 healthy volunteers showed that participants who slept fewer than seven hours a night were nearly three times as likely to get a cold than those who averaged eight or more hours of sleep. Participants who reported waking up periodically or having problems falling asleep fared even worse. Study subjects who remained awake for as little as eight per cent of the time they were lying in bed were 5.5 times more likely to get the sniffles than those who slept throughout the night. "It provides yet another reason why people should make time in their schedules to get a complete night of rest," said Carnegie Mellon University psychology professor and lead author of the study, Sheldon Cohen. The study was published in the Jan. 12 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. © CBC 2009

Keyword: Sleep; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 12435 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. A new book defending vaccines, written by a doctor infuriated at the claim that they cause autism, is galvanizing a backlash against the antivaccine movement in the United States. But there will be no book tour for the doctor, Paul A. Offit, author of “Autism’s False Prophets.” He has had too many death threats. “I’ll speak at a conference, say, to nurses,” he said. “But I wouldn’t go into a bookstore and sign books. It can get nasty. There are parents who really believe that vaccines hurt their children, and to them, I’m incredibly evil. They hate me.” Dr. Offit, a pediatrician, is a mild, funny and somewhat rumpled 57-year-old. The chief of infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, he is also the co-inventor of a vaccine against rotavirus, a diarrheal disease that kills 60,000 children a year in poor countries. “When Jonas Salk invented polio vaccine, he was a hero — and I’m a terrorist?” he jokes, referring to a placard denouncing him at a recent demonstration by antivaccine activists outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. In recent years, the debate over vaccines and autism, which began in fear and confusion, has hardened into anger. As Dr. Offit’s book details, numerous studies of thimerosal, measles virus and other alleged autism triggers in vaccines have been conducted, and hundreds of children with diagnoses of autism have undergone what he considers sham treatments and been “cured.” Both sides insist that the medical evidence backs them. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Autism; Neurotoxins
Link ID: 12434 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By TARA PARKER-POPE In half a dozen states and many cities and counties, it is illegal to use a hand-held cellphone while driving — but perfectly all right to talk on a hands-free device. The theory is that it’s distracting to hold a phone and drive with just one hand. But a large body of research now shows that a hands-free phone poses no less danger than a hand-held one — that the problem is not your hands but your brain. “It’s not that your hands aren’t on the wheel,” said David Strayer, director of the Applied Cognition Laboratory at the University of Utah and a leading researcher on cellphone safety. “It’s that your mind is not on the road.” Now Dr. Strayer’s research has gained a potent ally. On Monday, the National Safety Council, the nonprofit advocacy group that has pushed for seat belt laws and drunken driving awareness, called for an all-out ban on using cellphones while driving. “There is a huge misperception with the public that it’s O.K. if they are using a hands-free phone,” said Janet Froetscher, the council’s president and chief executive. “It’s the same challenge we had with seat belts and drunk driving — we’ve got to get people thinking the same way about cellphones.” Laboratory experiments using simulators, real-world road studies and accident statistics all tell the same story: drivers talking on a cellphone are four times as likely to have an accident as drivers who are not. That’s the same level of risk posed by a driver who is legally drunk. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 12433 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JOHN TIERNEY In the new issue of Nature, the neuroscientist Larry Young offers a grand unified theory of love. After analyzing the brain chemistry of mammalian pair bonding — and, not incidentally, explaining humans’ peculiar erotic fascination with breasts — Dr. Young predicts that it won’t be long before an unscrupulous suitor could sneak a pharmaceutical love potion into your drink. That’s the bad news. The not-so-bad news is that you may enjoy this potion if you took it knowingly with the right person. But the really good news, as I see it, is that we might reverse-engineer an anti-love potion, a vaccine preventing you from making an infatuated ass of yourself. Although this love vaccine isn’t mentioned in Dr. Young’s essay, when I raised the prospect he agreed it could also be in the offing. Could any discovery be more welcome? This is what humans have sought ever since Odysseus ordered his crew to tie him to the mast while sailing past the Sirens. Long before scientists identified neuroreceptors, long before Britney Spears’ quickie Vegas wedding or any of Larry King’s seven marriages, it was clear that love was a dangerous disease. Love was correctly identified as a potentially fatal chemical imbalance in the medieval tale of Tristan and Isolde, who accidentally consumed a love potion and turned into hopeless addicts. Even though they realized that her husband, the king, would punish adultery with death, they had to have their love fix. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 12432 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By James Ritchie Elephants do not have the greatest eyesight in the animal kingdom, but they never forget a face. Carol Buckley at The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tenn., for instance, reports that in 1999 resident elephant Jenny became anxious and could hardly be contained when introduced to newcomer Shirley, an Asian elephant. As the animals checked one another out with their trunks, Shirley, too, became animated and the two seemingly old friends had what appeared to be an emotional reunion. "There was this euphoria," sanctuary founder Buckley says. "Shirley started bellowing, and then Jenny did, too. Both trunks were checking out each other's scars. I've never experienced anything that intense without it being aggression." Turns out the two elephants had briefly crossed paths years earlier. Buckley knew that Jenny had performed with the traveling Carson & Barnes Circus, before coming to the sanctuary in 1999, but she knew little about Shirley's background. She did a little digging, only to discover that Shirley had been in the circus with Jenny for a few months—23 years earlier. Remarkable recall power, researchers believe, is a big part of how elephants survive. Matriarch elephants, in particular, hold a store of social knowledge that their families can scarcely do without, according to research conducted on elephants at Amboseli National Park in Kenya. © 1996-2009 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Evolution
Link ID: 12431 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Rob Stein In addition to subprime mortgages, credit default swaps and lax government oversight, another factor may need to be added to the list of culprits responsible for the economic meltdown: testosterone. A new study has found that men who were programmed in the womb to be the most responsive to testosterone tend to be the most successful financial traders, providing powerful support for the influence of the hormone over their decision-making. "Testosterone is the hormone of irrational exuberance," said Aldo Rustichini, a professor of economics at the University of Minnesota who helped conduct the study being published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "The bubble preceding the current crash may have been due to euphoria related to high levels of testosterone, or high sensitivity to it." While it may come as no surprise that testosterone could be a big player in the mano-a-mano world of Wall Street, the research offers the best evidence yet of the hormone's role in determining which would-be Masters of the Universe will thrive. It also supports the growing recognition of the role that biology plays in complex human behaviors, and that economic choices in particular are often less rational than economists appreciated. © Copyright 1996-2009 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Emotions; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 12430 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists have produced more evidence that carrying the wrong variant of a single gene can raise the risk of overeating and obesity. Several studies have suggested that carrying one of two variants of the FTO gene make overeating more likely. A University College London team found children carrying one or two of these variants were more likely to binge on biscuits after eating a meal. The study appears in the International Journal of Obesity. The researchers hope their work will shed more light on why some children become overweight or obese. They believe a greater understanding of the impact of specific genes paves the way for new therapies to minimise their effect. It is thought that more than half the European population carries at least one of the two key FTO variants. A previous study found children who carry one specific variant of the FTO gene eat an average of 100 extra calories per meal. They were more likely to eat food loaded with sugar and fat, rather than more healthy options. However, a separate study found vigorous physical activity could blunt the effects of carrying the key FTO variants. In the latest study, the UCL team offered 131 four to five-year-olds a mixed plate of sweet and savoury biscuits within one hour of finishing a full meal. Those who carried one or two of the key FTO variants were more likely to tuck in despite the fact that they should have been full. Lead researcher Professor Jane Wardle said: "We believe this research tells us more about how some children are more responsive to signals in their bodies encouraging them to eat when full than others. "Knowing how the genes work is the first step to minimising these negative effects. The occasional treat won't do us any harm - but this study showed that some children don't know when to stop - which could lead to the onset of obesity and a lifetime of health problems. Children with higher risk versions of the gene might be helped if parents do their bit to keep temptations out of the home." (C)BBC

Keyword: Obesity; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 12429 - Posted: 01.12.2009

Scientists have found a genetic risk factor for late onset Alzheimer's disease which is carried only by women. The discovery is the first evidence to suggest that genetics may partly explain why more women than men tend to develop the disease. The key variant was found in a gene on the X chromosome, of which females have two copies, but males only one. The study, by the US-based Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, features in the journal Nature Genetics. The Mayo team carried out a detailed genetic analysis of patients with Alzheimer's diease. They identified a particular variant of a gene called PCDH11X which appeared to be closely linked to a higher risk of the disease. However, further analysis showed that the association was almost entirely restricted to women. The raised risk of Alzheimer's was not statistically significant in men who carried one copy of the rogue gene variant, and only marginally so in women with just one copy. But the raised risk was much more significant in women who carried two copies - one inherited from each parent. PCDH11X controls production of a protein called a protocadherin, part of a family of molecules that help cells in the central nervous system to communicate with each other. Some evidence has suggested that protocadherins may be broken down by an enzyme which has been linked to some forms of Alzheimer's disease. Lead researcher Dr Steven Younkin said it was likely that many genes contributed to the overall risk of Alzheimer's, and that age was probably a more significant factor. (C)BBC

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 12428 - Posted: 01.12.2009

The four-eyed spookfish may have seemed strange enough. Now researchers say it doesn't really have four eyes. Instead, it is the first known vertebrate to use mirrors, rather than lenses, to focus light in its eyes. “In nearly 500 million years of vertebrate evolution, and many thousands of vertebrate species living and dead, this is the only one known to have solved the fundamental optical problem faced by all eyes — how to make an image — using a mirror," said Julian Partridge from the University of Bristol. While the spookfish looks like it has four eyes, in fact it has only two, each of which is split into two connected parts. One half points upwards, giving the spookfish a view of the ocean — and potential food — above. The other half, which looks like a bump on the side of the fish's head, points down. These diverticular eyes, as they are called, are unique among all vertebrates in that they use mirrors to make the image, Partridge and colleagues found. Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here Very little light penetrates the ocean's waters below a depth of about a half-mile (1 kilometer). Like many other deep-sea fish, the spookfish is adapted to make the most of what little light there is. The spookfish largely looks for flashes of bioluminescent light from other animals. The diverticular eyes image these flashes, warning the spookfish of other animals that are active, and otherwise unseen, below its vulnerable belly. © 2009 LiveScience.com.

Keyword: Vision; Evolution
Link ID: 12427 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By RANDALL STROSS E-MAILING now comes so naturally to us that we can do it in our sleep — at least in the exceptional case. An article that will soon appear in the journal Sleep Medicine, detailing the experience of a sleepwalker, shows that we can send messages even when we seem to be sound asleep. Such e-mailing interests neurologists who specialize in sleep science. After all, it poses a challenge to the accepted notion that sleepwalking is confined to activities involving gross motor movements, with minimal cognitive activity. Until now, we have been able to take comfort in our understanding of our own sleepwalking as an impersonal phenomenon. Whether it is eating junk food, rearranging furniture or even driving a car, the body carries out the action, seemingly on its own, while the mind slumbers, blissfully unaware. Legal doctrine is based on this same notion. Sleepwalkers have been acquitted of criminal felony charges by basing their defense on the concept of “noninsane automatism.” E-mailing while sleeping, however, upturns the previous understanding of the mind as essentially quiescent, absolved of a participating role. The Sleep Medicine article — prepared by Dr. Fouzia Siddiqui, a neurologist at the University of Toledo Medical Center in Ohio, and two colleagues — describes one woman’s e-mailing while sleeping as the first reported case of “complex nonviolent cognitive behavior.” It involved not just composing messages, but also navigating past two separate levels of password security to reach the e-mail software. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 12426 - Posted: 06.24.2010

It may, in the future, be possible to treat brain diseases with ultrasound THE idea of treating maladies of the mind by blasting the brain with noise sounds, to the layman, like kicking a television set in order to repair it. It is, however, on the cards. The noise in question is ultrasound. This has been used for decades to scan human interiors—particularly wombs containing developing fetuses. The ultrasound is reflected from surfaces within the body (such as the skin of a fetus) in the way that audible sound echoes from a cliff face. William Tyler and his colleagues at Arizona State University, however, want to take things a stage further. They think that ultrasound might be used therapeutically as well. The team knew from experiments done by other groups of researchers that ultrasound can have a physical effect on tissue. Unfortunately, that effect is generally a harmful one. When nerve cells were exposed to it at close range, for example, they heated up and died. Dr Tyler, however, realised that all of the studies he had examined used high-intensity ultrasound. He guessed that lowering the intensity might allow nerve cells to be manipulated without damage. To test this idea, he and his colleagues placed slices of living mouse brain into an artificial version of cerebrospinal fluid, the liquid that cushions the brain. They then beamed different frequencies of low-intensity ultrasound at the slices and monitored the results using dye molecules that give off light in response to the activity of proteins called ion channels. (An ion channel is a molecule that allows the passage of electrically charged atoms of sodium, potassium, calcium and so on through the outer membrane of a cell.) © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2008.

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 12425 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Stephen J. Dubner What do Bruce Pardo and Atif Irfan have in common? In case you’re not familiar with their names, let me rephrase: What do the white guy who dressed up as Santa and killed his ex-wife and her family (and then committed suicide) and the Muslim guy who got thrown off a recent AirTran flight on suspicion of terrorism have in common? The answer is that both of them had their intentions badly misread. The one who should have been scary to people who knew him wasn’t; and the one who scared the people who didn’t know him turned out to not be scary at all. As we’ll see below, this is a common pattern. But before going forward, let me first backtrack a bit. Pardo was a churchgoer whom no one pegged as a homicidal maniac. “He’s a totally different person from what you hear and see on the news for what he did,” said a family friend named Amanda Dunn. “I’m shocked, literally, I’m shocked. I can’t believe that’s actually the same guy.” Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Emotions; Evolution
Link ID: 12424 - Posted: 06.24.2010