Men are more rewarded by video games than women on a neural level, which explains why they're more likely to become addicted to them, researchers at Stanford University claim. In a brain-imaging study by Stanford's school of medicine, researchers discovered that, when playing video games, the part of the brain that generates feelings of reward is more stimulated in men than in women. That helps explain why they're more likely to get hooked, the study's authors say. Men have more activity in their mesocorticolimbic centre, the region of the brain researchers say is associated with reward and addiction, than women. (Associated Press/Jim Mone) The researchers, whose work was recently published online in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, created a video game where a vertical line, or a "wall," divided the middle of the screen. Ten balls would appear at the right of the screen and move toward the wall, and test participants would have to click on them before they hit. If the balls were clicked on before they hit the wall, the player would gain territory; if the player missed, space would be lost. The test subjects — 11 men and 11 women — were told to click on as many balls as possible but were not told that they would win or lose territory. © CBC 2008

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 11284 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NEW YORK - Giving infants a small dose of a sugar solution just before they get injections seems to make the pain more tolerable, a study shows. Researchers gave babies ages 2 and 4 months the solution two minutes before getting routine immunizations and noted that it seemed to help them recover from the pain of the injection more quickly, the medical journal Pediatrics reported. Dr. Linda A. Hatfield, at the Pennsylvania State University School of Nursing in University Park, and her associates gave the sugar solution to 38 infants and plain water to 45 infants before they were to get a series of injections. The first, second and third injections were administered at 2 minutes, 5 minutes, and 7 minutes after the solutions were given. To assess the babies’ experience of pain, the investigators used a validated composite pain scale that measures crying, facial expression, behavior, body movement, and sleep. The scale goes from 0 to 5, with higher scores representing greater pain. Pain was assessed immediately after each injection, and at 9 minutes. Copyright 2008 Reuters.

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 11283 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Women who endure severe stress early in pregnancy may be more likely to have children that go on to develop schizophrenia, research suggests. A University of Manchester team looked at data from 1.38 million Danish births occurring between 1973 and 1995. The risk of schizophrenia and related disorders was around 67% greater among the offspring of women who lost a relative during their first trimester. The study appears in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry. The findings appear to confirm the theory that a mother's psychological state can have a profound influence on her unborn baby. Previous research has linked stress in pregnancy to a raised risk of low birth weight and prematurity. And some studies have also suggested that the abnormalities in brain structure and function that are associated with schizophrenia may begin to form in the earliest stages of development. However, the researchers found no evidence that a loss of a relative at any other time during the pregnancy, or in the six months leading up to a pregnancy, had any effect on the unborn baby. In addition, the association between bereavement and schizophrenia risk only appeared significant for people without a family history of mental illness. The researchers suggest that chemicals released by the mother's brain in response to stress may have a direct impact on the foetus's developing brain. These effects may be strongest in early pregnancy, when protective barriers between the mother and foetus are not fully constructed. They add that the risk of schizophrenia is likely to be influenced by other factors, such as genes. (C)BBC

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Stress
Link ID: 11282 - Posted: 02.05.2008

Dementia is three times more common in people whose blood is low in folates, a form of vitamin B particularly found in green vegetables, a study suggests. The Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry study followed 518 South Korean pensioners for two years. There is growing evidence linking levels of folates - or folic acid - and Alzheimer's disease, though deficiency could be a symptom of dementia. The UK is currently considering adding the vitamin to bread and flour. This is primarily for the benefit of pregnant women and their unborn children, as folic acid has been proven to prevent spinal problems in the growing foetus, but research increasingly suggests it could also ward off dementia. However, the exact relationship between folate deficiency and dementia remains unclear, as it could well be a symptom as much as a cause. The team led by the Chonnam National University Medical School in Gwangju acknowledged this in their study, noting that "changes in micronutrients could be linked with the other typical signs that precede dementia, including weight loss and low blood pressure. While weight loss is unlikely to alter micronutrients in the blood, it may indicate dietary changes in the quality of food intake." They found that 3.5% of their study group were folate deficient to start with. These people were 3.5 times more likely to have developed dementia by the end of the study. The disease was more common in those who were older, relatively poorly educated and inactive, the researchers found. (C)BBC

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 11281 - Posted: 02.05.2008

By LAURAN NEERGAARD WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's a tiny vacuum cleaner for the brain: A new treatment for stroke victims promises to suction out clogged arteries in hopes of stopping the brain attack before it does permanent harm. Called Penumbra, the newly approved device is the latest in a series of inside-the-artery attempts to boost recovery from stroke, the nation's No. 3 killer. Now the question is how to determine which patients are good candidates - because, illogical as it may sound, unclogging isn't always the best option. "Is the patient at a stage of stroke where you're going to hurt them by pulling a clot out, or show benefit?" asks Dr. Walter Koroshetz of the National Institutes of Health. "It's good we have devices. Now we have to learn how to use them." More than 700,000 Americans suffer a stroke each year, and more than 150,000 of them die. Survivors often face serious disability. Most strokes occur when blood vessels feeding the brain become blocked, starving delicate brain cells of oxygen until they die. For those, the clot-busting drug TPA can mean the difference between permanent brain injury or recovery - but only if patients receive intravenous TPA within three hours of the first symptoms. © 2008 The Associated Press.

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 11280 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Ann Gibbons In the past 100,000 years, modern humans have colonized the far corners of the globe, adapting to new environments as they migrated. Researchers have long assumed that these dramatic transitions resulted in a sort of accelerated evolution in which genes for traits such as skin color and stature changed rapidly to allow humans to survive in their new habitats. Now, a team of French and Spanish researchers has found powerful new evidence to support this idea, identifying 582 genes that have evolved differently in different populations in the past 60,000 years, including a dozen that protect people from obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and other diseases. The team, led by population geneticist Lluis Quintana-Murci of the Pasteur Institute and Centre National de le Recherche Scientifique in Paris, analyzed DNA of 210 individuals from the database of Phase II of the International HapMap Project, an effort to identify variations in human genes that cause disease. The researchers analyzed 2.8 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)--mutations in a single nucleotide in a genome that varies between individuals or populations--from Europeans, Africans, and Asians. Then they sorted the mutations by type, focusing on 15,259 nonsynonymous mutations, which alter amino acids and thus a gene's function. © 2008 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 11279 - Posted: 06.24.2010

John Whitfield Hanging out with dad brings benefits for the kids.Susan C. AlbertsIt's not just humans who benefit from having a father figure around; the longer a yellow baboon’s dad sticks around, the better it does, new research shows. The discovery shows that there’s more to male baboon life than sex and fighting, says Jeanne Altmann of Princeton University in New Jersey. “We haven’t given males due credit for the subtlety and complexity of their behaviour,” she says. Altmann and her colleagues studied yellow baboons (Papio cynocephalus ) living in Amboseli National Park in Kenya, near the base of Mount Kilimanjaro. They report their results in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 1. The animals live in groups averaging 40 individuals. Females are generally loyal to the group they were born in, but males disperse. Some move regularly from group to group, others stay in the same group for several years. The researchers looked at 118 baboons born between 1982 and 2002, of which 40 were male. Testing DNA from faeces revealed the identity of each youngster’s father. The team had previously shown that adult males intercede in fights on their offsprings' behalf2. But the consequences of this weren’t clear. It has been suggested that males help out their young to show off their own qualities as a mate, rather than to specifically protect the juveniles. The new results, however, suggest that there is something in it for the kids, too. © 2008 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 11278 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Certain variations in a gene that helps regulate response to stress tend to protect adults who were abused in childhood from developing depression, according to new research funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health. Adults who had been abused but didn't have the variations in the gene had twice the symptoms of moderate to severe depression, compared to those with the protective variations. "People's biological variations set the stage for how they respond to different environmental factors, like stress, that can lead to depression," said NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel, M.D. "Knowing what those variations are eventually could help clinicians individualize care for their patients by predicting who may be at risk or suggesting more precise avenues for treatment." Almost 15 million U.S. adults have major depression. The new report adds to evidence that a combination of gene variations and life experiences promote the disorder or protect people from it. Variations in many genes are thought to be involved, but few of them have been identified. The study also supports previous evidence that a stress hormone, corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), plays a role in depression. The variations are in a gene that makes a receptor for the hormone. Receptors are proteins that act as binding sites, in or on cells, for chemical messengers that affect cell function. The receptor for CRH is called CRHR1.

Keyword: Depression; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 11277 - Posted: 02.05.2008

Fitting in at school can be tough for children with attention problems.(Phil Marino for The New York Times)What does it feel like to have attention deficit disorder? The answer to that question can be found in a fascinating new report from the Journal of Pediatric Nursing called “I Have Always Felt Different.'’ The article gives a glimpse into the experience of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or A.D.H.D., from a child’s perspective. Assistant professors Robin Bartlett and Mona M. Shattell, from the School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, interviewed 16 college students who had been diagnosed with A.D.H.D. as children. The investigators talked to them about how the disorder affected life at home, school and friendships. Like most kids, the students described a life of both conflict with and support from their parents. But in their case, fighting with parents was often triggered by attention-related problems like failing to complete laundry chores or cleaning their rooms. Doing things for my parents and being aware of what needs to be done around the house, that’s the only time it really gets to me or hurts me. Despite the conflict, many students viewed their parents as supportive. One student noted that support from parents often felt like “nagging,'’ but they had little choice. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: ADHD
Link ID: 11276 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A short afternoon nap can boost a person's ability to perform memory-based tasks, but only if they've learned the task well beforehand, says a U.S. study. Harvard Medical School researchers showed that subjects who took a 45-minute nap between memory tests were more likely to improve their scores the second time than those who remained awake. The catch is that only those who scored well on the tests before their nap — that is, those who learned the tasks well — showed real improvement in their repeat performances. Those who did well on the initial test but were not allowed to sleep did not see the same improvement in the second round. Those who did not do well in the first memory tests were not helped by taking a nap. Their re-test results were similar to those who likewise did poorly on the first tests and then stayed awake. The study, published Friday in the peer-reviewed journal SLEEP, followed 11 men and 22 women with an average age of 23. The participants were trained in various memory tasks, including learning their way through a maze and pairing words. Shortly afterward, 16 subjects took a 45-minute afternoon nap while 17 remained awake in the lab. After the nap, all subjects remained in the lab until the retest about two hours later. © CBC 2008

Keyword: Sleep; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 11275 - Posted: 06.24.2010

WASHINGTON - Government regulators said Friday the connection between Pfizer's anti-smoking drug Chantix and serious psychiatric problems is "increasingly likely." The Food and Drug Administration began in November investigating reports of depression, agitation and suicidal behavior in patients taking the popular twice-daily pill. The agency's announcement comes two weeks after Pfizer added stronger warnings to the drug. In doing so, the company stressed that a direct link between Chantix and the reported psychiatric problems has not been established, but could not be ruled out. In a public advisory released Friday, FDA said patients taking Chantix should tell their doctor about any history of mental illness. "Chantix may cause worsening of current psychiatric illness even if it is currently under control," reads the statement. "It may also cause an old psychiatric illness to reoccur." Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

Keyword: Depression; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 11274 - Posted: 02.04.2008

By David Brown Fittingly, the first person to detect a faint signal in all the noise was the interpreter. The 33-year-old woman who worked for eight years working with Spanish-speaking patients at a medical clinic in southern Minnesota noticed something familiar as she translated the story of a young meatpacker last September. Earlier last summer, she had heard a version of it from two other workers at the same slaughterhouse, and had told it to their doctors, who were different from her current patient's. When the consultation was over, she pointed this out. The interpreter's insight set in motion a story, still unfolding, that may be making envious the ghost of Berton Roueche, the legendary chronicler of medical mysteries at the New Yorker magazine. A new disease has surfaced in 12 people among the 1,300 employees at the factory run by Quality Pork Processors about 100 miles south of Minneapolis. The ailment is characterized by sensations of burning, numbness and weakness in the arms and legs. For most, this is unpleasant but not disabling. For a few, however, the ailment has made walking difficult and work impossible. The symptoms have slowly lessened in severity, but in none of the sufferers has it disappeared completely. © 2008 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Movement Disorders; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 11273 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Joan Raymond Are men smarter than women? No. But they sure think they are. An analysis of some 30 studies by British researcher Adrian Furnham, a professor of psychology at University College London, shows that men and women are fairly equal overall in terms of IQ. But women, it seems, underestimate their own candlepower (and that of women in general), while men overestimate theirs. Furnham talks to NEWSWEEK's Joan Raymond about his findings and why perceived IQ matters. Excerpts: NEWSWEEK: Many studies show that men score slightly higher in IQ tests. Is this significant? Adrian Furnham: Universally, men tend to score higher on certain specialized skills, such as spatial awareness. In the real world, that means they might be better at reading maps or navigating. Women score higher in terms of language development and emotional intelligence. But most experts agree there is no real, important overall difference when it comes to gender and intelligence. But women think they aren't as smart as men? That's the conundrum. What I study is "perceived intelligence," essentially how smart people think they are. I analyzed 30 international studies, and what I found was that women, across the world, tend to underplay their intelligence, while men overstate it. © 2008 Newsweek, Inc.

Keyword: Intelligence; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 11272 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers using MRI imaging have gone from studying peoples' brains to identifying specific thoughts, allowing them to tell which of 10 similar objects a person is viewing or thinking about. Functional MRI imaging has shown a lot about how our brains respond to pleasure and rewards, and has revealed brain processes and areas involved in deception. And neuroscientists have been wiring the brain's motor neurons to enable paralyzed patients to control prosthetics, computers and robots. But the new research is aimed at the biology underlying thoughts-- or, as scientists call them, "cognitive processes." Carnegie Mellon cognitive psychologist Marcel Just teamed up with machine learning expert Tom Mitchell to conduct the research. They scanned the brains of people who looked at sets images of similar objects-- like 10 types of tools, or 10 types of homes. The researchers excluded the vision area of the brain from the scans "because it's almost too easy a target," explains Just. "The visual cortex really contains a very faithful, accurate representation of a shape that your looking at-- whatever is on your retina gets translated to your visual cortex at the back of your brain. And if you look for that pattern, that's a lot easier, so we can be very accurate there." © ScienCentral, 2000-2008.

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 11271 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers have found that in mice, the brain responds to aggression in the same way as other pleasures. Craig Kennedy, chairman of the Special Education Department at Vanderbilt University, says the work shows, "for mice aggression is rewarding and that dopamine's involved in that rewarding affect in the same areas of the brain that's rewarding for drugs, sex, can't say rock and roll with mice, but anything that seems to be pleasant." Whenever we do something we like, brains in both animals and people release a drug called dopamine. When it attaches to receptors in the brain, it creates a pleasure circuit, sending out a signal of good feeling. Researchers are studying the role dopamine plays in a number of activities ranging from alcohol, drugs, and gambling, to food and even exercise. As an educator interested in students with special needs, Kennedy has seen children with autism who show aggression towards other people. He's spent much of the past 25 years trying to understand what he calls the "neurobiology of aggression." He says, "that's led us to working with mice in the lab to try to ask some questions about what goes on in the brain during aggression." He notes that aggression is present in "all kinds of animals, from flies to monkeys," and adds, "Being aggressive can be very adaptive (useful) in the wild. It allows you to gain access to food, maintain territory, access to mates, protect offspring; so it's a very adaptive set of behaviors." Kennedy emphasizes, however, that when too much aggression shows up in today's humans, it sometimes presents a problem. © ScienCentral, 2000-2008.

Keyword: Aggression; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 11270 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A species of hummingbird makes a chirping noise with its tail feathers, not its throat, a study using high-speed video has suggested. The exact source of the noise from male Anna's hummingbirds has been the subject of debate among researchers. By using specialised footage, a team of US scientists were able to show that male hummingbirds' tail feathers vibrated during high-speed dives. The findings appear in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B journal. The loud chirp sound is produced by male Anna's hummingbirds (Calypte anna) as the birds dive towards the ground at speeds that exceed 50mph (80km/h) during their displays for nearby females. The researchers, Chris Clarke and Teresa Feo from the University of California, Berkeley, wrote in their paper that they had gathered evidence that put an end to the uncertainty surrounding the source of the sound. "Production of the sound was originally attributed to the tail, but a more recent study argued that the sound was vocal. "We use high-speed video of diving birds, experimental manipulation on wild birds and laboratory experiments on individual feathers to show that the dive sound is made by tail feathers," they explained. The pair added that while bird vocalisation had received considerable attention, non-vocal or "mechanical" sounds had been "poorly described". "A diverse array of birds apparently make mechanical sounds with their feathers. Few studies have established that these sounds are non-vocal, and the mechanics of how these sounds are produced remain poorly studied," the scientists wrote. (C)BBC

Keyword: Animal Communication; Language
Link ID: 11269 - Posted: 02.01.2008

By Chip Walter When passion takes a grip, a kiss locks two humans together in an exchange of scents, tastes, textures, secrets and emotions. We kiss furtively, lasciviously, gently, shyly, hungrily and exuberantly. We kiss in broad daylight and in the dead of night. We give ceremonial kisses, affectionate kisses, Hollywood air kisses, kisses of death and, at least in fairytales, pecks that revive princesses. Lips may have evolved first for food and later applied themselves to speech, but in kissing they satisfy different kinds of hungers. In the body, a kiss triggers a cascade of neural messages and chemicals that transmit tactile sensations, sexual excitement, feelings of closeness, motivation and even euphoria. Not all the messages are internal. After all, kissing is a communal affair. The fusion of two bodies dispatches communiqués to your partner as powerful as the data you stream to yourself. Kisses can convey important information about the status and future of a relationship. So much, in fact, that, according to recent research, if a first kiss goes bad, it can stop an otherwise promising relationship dead in its tracks. Some scientists believe that the fusing of lips evolved because it facilitates mate selection. “Kissing,” said evolutionary psychologist Gordon G. Gallup of the University at Albany, State University of New York, last September in an interview with the BBC, “involves a very complicated exchange of information—olfactory information, tactile information and postural types of adjustments that may tap into underlying evolved and unconscious mechanisms that enable people to make determinations … about the degree to which they are genetically incompatible.” Kissing may even reveal the extent to which a partner is willing to commit to raising children, a central issue in long-term relationships and crucial to the survival of our species. © 1996-2007 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 11268 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By GARDINER HARRIS and BENEDICT CAREY Drugs for epilepsy, bipolar illness and mood problems double the risks of suicidal thoughts and behavior, and patients taking them should be watched for sudden behavioral changes, drug regulators have said. The increased risks, while double in relative terms, are small. The Food and Drug Administration undertook a combined analysis of 199 clinical trials with 43,892 patients and found 4 suicides and 105 reports of suicidal symptoms among the 27,863 patients who were given the drugs compared to no suicides and 35 reports of suicidal symptoms among the 16,029 patients treated with placebos. Taken together, the risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior was 0.43 percent for those on drug therapy and 0.22 percent for those given placebos. These medications are primarily used to help epileptics control seizures and to calm the surges in energy and mood that, along with bouts of depression, characterize bipolar disorder. The drugs, which include Depakote, Lamictal, Topamax, Keppra, Lyrica and Neurontin, are sometimes prescribed for chronic pain and headaches, as well. Doctors said Thursday that the increased risk did not outweigh the benefits of the drugs. “What’s really important to say is that bipolar disorder is very difficult to treat, the burden is enormous, and these medications help keep people free of mood and anxiety symptoms and allow them to function,” said Andrew A. Nierenberg, medical director of the bipolar clinic and research program at Massachusetts General Hospital. Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Epilepsy; Depression
Link ID: 11267 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Douglas E. Vetter The hammer, anvil and stirrup—also known as the malleus, incus, and stapes, respectively, and collectively, as "middle ear ossicles"—are the smallest bones in the human body. Found in the middle ear, they are a part of the auditory system between the eardrum and the cochlea (the spiral-shaped conduit housing hair cells that are involved in transmitting sound to the brain). To understand the role of these bones in hearing requires an understanding of levers. This is because the middle ear ossicles are arranged and interact with each other as a lever system. All levers generate a mechanical advantage. They are used to exert a large force over a small distance at one end of the lever by applying a smaller force over a longer distance at the opposite end. The leveraging capabilities of the middle ear ossicles are needed to generate the large forces that allow us to hear. As terrestrial animals, we live in a gaseous environment. But, our inner ear is filled with fluid, and this represents a problem. As an example, most people have first hand knowledge of hearing underwater. If someone screams at you from above the water's surface, the sounds are tremendously muted, making it difficult to understand or even hear at all. That is simply because most of the sound is reflected off the water's surface. © 1996-2007 Scientific American Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 11266 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Stephen Baker Forget focus groups. Companies that want feedback on a product are getting inside consumers' heads—literally. The latest rage in marketing involves harnessing a test subject to a narrow shelf, securing the head tightly, and introducing the body into the tube of a $3 million functional magnetic resonance imaging machine (FMRI). For about $1,000 per hour, researchers flash images for their tightly trussed subjects, play advertisements, and read promotional literature. All the while, they study the second-by-second response of the brain. This is neuromarketing. And researchers from the consulting firm of FKF Applied Research in Los Angeles to Neurosense in Oxford, Britain, are using the technique to study what happens in different regions of the brain. Activity in the almond-shaped amydala, for example, shows early alerts of fear and danger. The challenge is to use that data to determine whether, say, people are likely to watch an episode of Viacom's (VIA) South Park or buy a fuel-efficient Honda Motor hybrid car (see BusinessWeek.com, 10/08/07). If this sounds like a golden opportunity for marketers to hawk questionable conclusions from brain studies as unfiltered truth, it is. Researchers predict that neuromarketing will produce plenty of hype bordering on fantasy in the coming year or two. Despite this, many swear by the technology. Unlike information culled from traditional focus groups, the signals issuing from the brain can point to what the subjects are really thinking and feeling. Brain scans bypass the pride and shame and peer pressure that lead subjects in focus groups to edit their responses. In that sense, the scans are close cousins of lie detectors. Copyright 2000-2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc

Keyword: Brain imaging; Emotions
Link ID: 11265 - Posted: 06.24.2010