By Shankar Vedantam Over the past several decades, a steady stream of studies has documented that people born in winter and spring have an increased risk for schizophrenia, a serious mental illness characterized by disordered thinking, hallucinations and other psychotic symptoms. Explanations for the increased risk have ranged from the astrological -- different signs of the zodiac have been associated with various mental problems -- to accounts that suggested the risk came from seasonal variations in sunlight. In recent months and years, scientists have developed a different explanation: Studies show the increased risk of schizophrenia appears linked to maternal infections during the first and second trimesters of pregnancy -- especially flu infections. Since the flu peaks in the fall, this might explain why babies born in the winter and spring have the higher risk. The research is both intriguing and troubling. For one thing, it suggests that the origins of diseases such as schizophrenia might start as early as the womb. Indeed, symptoms of schizophrenia, which typically emerge in late adolescence or early adulthood and affects about 1 percent of the population, may only be the very last stage in a long process. © 2007 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 11010 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Premenopausal women with even mild depression have less bone mass than do their nondepressed peers, a study funded in part by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), shows. The level of bone loss is at least as high as that associated with recognized risk factors for osteoporosis, including smoking, low calcium intake, and lack of physical activity. Hip bones, the site of frequent fractures among older people, were among those showing the most thinning in depressed premenopausal women. The reduced bone mass puts them at higher risk of these costly, sometimes fatal fractures and others as they age, the researchers note in the November 26 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. The report was submitted by Giovanni Cizza, MD, PhD, MHSc, of NIMH and the NIH National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK); Farideh Eskandari, MD, MHSc, of NIMH; and colleagues. "Osteoporosis is a silent disease. Too often, the first symptom a clinician sees is when a patient shows up with a broken bone. Now we know that depression can serve as a red flag — that depressed women are more likely than other women to approach menopause already at higher risk of fractures," said NIMH Deputy Director Richard Nakamura, PhD. After bone mass reaches its peak in youth, bone-thinning continues throughout life, accelerating after menopause. Preliminary studies had suggested that depression may be a risk factor for lower-than-average bone mass even in young, premenopausal women. Results of the current study lend considerable weight to those earlier findings. The study’s design reduced the possibility that the lower bone mass was linked to factors other than depression.

Keyword: Depression; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 11009 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Daniel Engber Here's a pretty safe bet: At some point this week, somewhere in the world—a darkened auditorium, a classroom, or an academic conference—a biologist will quote Marcel Proust. My career as a grad student in neuroscience was filled with these obligatory madeleine moments: It seemed like every talk, lecture, presentation, or paper on the biology of memory began with a dip into Swann's Way. An extended passage from the book appears in the brain researcher's standard reference manual, Principles of Neural Science, and Proustian inscriptions routinely make their way into peer-reviewed science journals (PDF) and book chapters. Even the most sublunary findings—a study of cultured mouse cells or the neuromuscular junction of a fly—might earn the literary flourish of a line or two, projected above an audience on a PowerPoint slide: "I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. … " How surprising, then, to discover that biologists have forgotten all about Proust. That's the leaky premise of science journalist Jonah Lehrer's new book, Proust Was a Neuroscientist. "As scientists dissect our remembrances into a list of molecules and brain regions," he writes, "they fail to realize they are channeling a reclusive French novelist." If only they knew! And it's not just Proust whose work is being "channeled." According to Lehrer, the lab-coated philistines have spent 100 years rehashing the discoveries of modernist literature, painting, and music. "We now know that Proust was right about memory, Cezanne was uncannily accurate about the visual cortex, Stein anticipated Chomsky, and Woolf pierced the mystery of consciousness; modern neuroscience has confirmed these artistic intuitions." (C)2007 Washington Post.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 11008 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Lisa Katayama SAN FRANCISCO -- I feel like the hoodlum Alex in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange: My head is held steady by a chin strap, while two technicians grease my scalp with conductive gel and slip on a cap bristling with electrodes. I'm about to have my brain scrambled -- electrically -- in the name of medical science. Scientists are going to knock out regions of my brain while I perform a memory test. "We're ready to do some zapping!" one of the technicians says excitedly. I'm a guinea pig in a brain-scan experiment conceived by neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley, who is testing how memory changes with age. The "zapping" induces seizures in some subjects and cures depression in others. I don't know what it will do to me, but I'm about to find out. Brain experiments are a dime a dozen these days. But Gazzaley's experiment is the first to combine three brain-scan technologies in one study: functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), which will knock out some of my memory circuits. "Gazzaley's research is cutting edge," says Suzanne Corkin, an MIT neuroscientist. "Most cognitive neuroscience labs do not have the equipment and technical knowledge to apply all three methods." © 2007 CondéNet, Inc.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Brain imaging
Link ID: 11007 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Brain scans may be able to reveal which people are at genetic risk of developing obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), researchers say. Individuals with OCD and their close relatives have distinctive patterns in their brain structure, a team at Cambridge University found. The genes responsible remain unknown, but it appears they change the brain's anatomy, which may aid diagnosis. The study is published in the latest edition of the journal Brain. OCD is an anxiety disorder in which the person is compelled by irrational fears and thoughts to repeat seemingly needless actions over and over again. It can manifest itself in repetitive behaviours, such as excessive hand washing, cleaning or repeated checking, affects 2%-3% of the population and is known to run in families. Using magnetic resonance imaging, the Cambridge researchers scanned the brains of nearly 100 people, including some with OCD and some who were close relatives of individuals with OCD. Participants also completed a computerised test that involved pressing a left or right button as quickly as possible when arrows appeared. When a beep noise sounded, volunteers had to attempt to stop their responses. The aim was to objectively measure ability to stop repetitive behaviours. Both OCD patients and their close relatives fared worse on the computer task than the control group. This was associated with decreases of grey matter in brain regions important in suppressing responses and habits - the orbitofrontal and right inferior frontal regions. Researcher Lara Menzies said: "Impaired brain function in the areas of the brain associated with stopping motor responses may contribute to the compulsive and repetitive behaviours that are characteristic of OCD. (C)BBC

Keyword: OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; Brain imaging
Link ID: 11006 - Posted: 11.26.2007

By DANIEL CARLAT On a blustery fall New England day in 2001, a friendly representative from Wyeth Pharmaceuticals came into my office in Newburyport, Mass., and made me an offer I found hard to refuse. He asked me if I’d like to give talks to other doctors about using Effexor XR for treating depression. He told me that I would go around to doctors’ offices during lunchtime and talk about some of the features of Effexor. It would be pretty easy. Wyeth would provide a set of slides and even pay for me to attend a speaker’s training session, and he quickly floated some numbers. I would be paid $500 for one-hour “Lunch and Learn” talks at local doctors’ offices, or $750 if I had to drive an hour. I would be flown to New York for a “faculty-development program,” where I would be pampered in a Midtown hotel for two nights and would be paid an additional “honorarium.” I thought about his proposition. I had a busy private practice in psychiatry, specializing in psychopharmacology. I was quite familiar with Effexor, since I had read recent studies showing that it might be slightly more effective than S.S.R.I.’s, the most commonly prescribed antidepressants: the Prozacs, Paxils and Zolofts of the world. S.S.R.I. stands for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, referring to the fact that these drugs increase levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, a chemical in the brain involved in regulating moods. Effexor, on the other hand, was being marketed as a dual reuptake inhibitor, meaning that it increases both serotonin and norepinephrine, another neurotransmitter. The theory promoted by Wyeth was that two neurotransmitters are better than one, and that Effexor was more powerful and effective than S.S.R.I.’s. I had already prescribed Effexor to several patients, and it seemed to work as well as the S.S.R.I.’s. If I gave talks to primary-care doctors about Effexor, I reasoned, I would be doing nothing unethical. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 11005 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By MARLISE SIMONS WAGENINGEN, the Netherlands — At first sight, nothing betrays the strange happenings at the Restaurant of the Future, a spacious, bright university canteen where scientists and students stop in for food and lunchtime chatter. The chef, Jan Kiewied, is stir-frying peppers at a glowing stove, his staff is scrubbing pots, and clients are scooping up salads and lentil soup. Yet everyone and everything is being recorded by hidden sensors and cameras. Carry that soup to the cash register and the customer may activate a pair of invisible floor scales. Sit down to eat and the chair may start to measure one’s heartbeat. And as a diner munches on that salad, a researcher on another floor may be watching how fast — or slowly — the diner chews. The restaurant, set on the leafy campus of Wageningen University, feels friendly enough, but it is fitted with hidden wiring and switches worthy of a battleship. In reality it is a new research center, devoted to exploring a question that is both simple and complicated: what makes people eat and drink the way they do? Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 11004 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Gene Emery BOSTON (Reuters) - Viewing the reflected image of an intact limb in a mirror can fool the mind into thinking that a lost leg or foot still exists, dramatically relieving phantom limb pain, researchers reported on Wednesday. At least 9 out of 10 amputees report feeling sometimes-severe pain in the missing limb, often the result of a sensation that the arm or leg is stuck in the wrong position. The sensation can be excruciating and pain drugs often do little to help. But some studies have suggested that using a mirror to trick the mind into thinking the lost limb is still there may help. Doctors do not understand why it works, but it appears to help a confused brain reconcile sensations coming from the severed nerves. Dr. Jack Tsao, a Navy neurologist at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, asked 22 volunteers, most of whom had lost part of a leg in Iraq, to try one of three therapies. With the mirror technique, patients saw a reflected image of their intact limb as they spent 15 minutes a day trying to move legs and feet. The setup gave the illusion that the missing limb was present and moving normally. © Reuters 2007.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 11003 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Patrick Barry In an advance that could solve many of the ethical and technical issues involved in stem cell research, two groups of scientists have independently converted human skin cells directly into stem cells without creating or destroying embryos. "We are now in a position to be able to generate patient- and disease-specific stem cells without using human eggs or embryos," Shinya Yamanaka, leader of one of the research teams at Kyoto University in Japan, said in an e-mail interview. Preliminary tests show that the newly created cells can develop into nerve cells, heart cells, or any other kind of cell in the body. Previously, only stem cells taken from early embryos had this kind of flexibility, called pluripotency. Scientists have suggested that such embryonic stem cells could be used for learning about genetic diseases, testing new drugs on cells grown in the lab, or growing healthy cells for therapeutic transplantation. Producing embryonic stem cells has become controversial, however, because the process destroys the embryo. "[Our] whole procedure doesn't involve any embryo," says Junying Yu, leader of the other research group, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. "This approach is certainly going to get rid of this [ethical] problem." ©2007 Science Service.

Keyword: Stem Cells; Regeneration
Link ID: 11002 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Helen Briggs At the age of six months, most babies have barely learnt to sit up, let alone crawl, walk or talk. But, according to new research, they can already assess someone's intentions towards them, deciding who is a likely friend or enemy. US scientists believe babies acquire the ability to make social evaluations in the first few months of life. It may provide the foundation for moral thoughts and actions in later years, they write in the journal Nature. "By six months, babies have learnt quite a lot and they are taking things in," said Kiley Hamlin, lead author of the research. We can't say that it is hard-wired (exists in a newborn baby) but we can say it is pre-linguistic and pre-explicit teaching," she told BBC News. "We don't think this says that babies have any morality but it does seem an essential piece of morality to feel positive about those who do good things and negative about those who do bad things - it seems like an important piece of a later more rational and moral system." Like all social creatures, humans are able to make rapid judgements of other people based on how they behave towards others. But the roots of this behaviour and when it develops are not well understood. Kiley Hamlin and colleagues at Yale University devised experiments to test whether babies aged six and 10 months were able to evaluate the behaviour of others. They used wooden toys of different shapes that were designed to appeal to babies. (C)BBC

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Emotions
Link ID: 11001 - Posted: 11.23.2007

Toronto researchers are challenging a longstanding belief about the mind and, in the process, suggesting there is additional hope for people who have lost many of their personal memories after a devastating brain injury. The researchers have concluded that people with such memory loss can still read other people's feelings and intentions — they can still detect sarcasm or deception, for example — abilities necessary for social relationships. "It's encouraging to know that this ability may be more resilient and preserved in us than was first thought," neuropsychologist Shayna Rosenbaum of the Baycrest Centre's Rotman Research Institute said in a release Thursday. The scientists, from the Baycrest institute and York University, tested the assumption that humans rely on their personal recollections, called episodic memory, to make sense of other people's behaviour. This "theory of mind" is widely accepted in scientific circles. In the experiment, two individuals, known as K.C. and M.L., had lost their personal memories in motorcycle and cycling accidents. But when tested on detecting empathy, deception and sarcasm in others, they did as well as 14 healthy subjects. "We found that if you're trying to put yourself mentally in someone else's shoes, you don't need to put yourself in your own shoes first," Rosenbaum said. © CBC 2007

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Emotions
Link ID: 11000 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Roger Highfield Can we measure creativity? One leading scientist, Professor Semir Zeki of University College London, certainly thinks so. And he's been given more than £1 million to prove it. Prof Zeki feels this area has been sorely neglected by neurobiologists. But now the Wellcome Trust, the country's biggest medical research charity, which recently opened Wellcome Collection, a £30 million cultural venue dedicated to medicine, life and art, is backing his research. With his colleague, Prof Ray Dolan, Prof Zeki will use the funding to establish a programme of research into "neuroaesthetics", turning a scientific spotlight on questions that writers, artists and philosophers have debated for millennia. This isn't as strange as it sounds: artists are, after all, closet neuroscientists who unconsciously understand what titillates the brain. Their ability to abstract the essentials of an image and discard the redundant information mirrors what the brain has evolved to do over millions of years. Brain cells that combine visual depth clues, such as texture and shading, with form and perspective, were unwittingly exploited by Paul Cézanne to summon form out of texture. © Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2007

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 10999 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Coco Ballantyne Let us give thanks on Thanksgiving for its cornucopia of foods: mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, creamed corn, cranberry sauce and, of course, turkey, among other delights. Every fourth Thursday of November, friends and family in the U.S. travel thousands of miles to gather and gorge in a celebration tracing back to 1621 when Plymouth Pilgrims and Native Americans spent three days breaking bread in gratitude for the year's plentiful harvest. Those early revelers were probably knocked out by their marathon feast, and most people today are familiar with the post-Thanksgiving food coma. But often the blame falls on the bird. Turkey allegedly causes drowsiness because it is packed with a nutrient called tryptophan. Tryptophan is one of 20 naturally occurring amino acids—the building blocks of proteins. Because the body is unable to manufacture tryptophan on its own, it must be obtained from food protein. Turkey is a great source of this essential acid, but it is not unique: many meats and other protein products pack comparable amounts. Tryptophan is used by the human body to make serotonin, a neurotransmitter. It has a somnolent effect on fruit flies, whose sleep is most likely equivalent to our slow-wave (non-REM) sleep, says neuroscientist Amita Sehgal of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia. Other studies show that one function of serotonin is the promotion of slow-wave sleep in nonhuman mammals, she adds, and it may do the same for humans. © 1996-2007 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Sleep; Obesity
Link ID: 10998 - Posted: 06.24.2010

MISSISSAUGA, Ont. - A leafy suburb near Toronto seems an unlikely place to find one of the world's most famous amnesiacs. But Kent Cochrane, a man who could be described as a prisoner of the present, is indeed famous. Known as K.C. in the world of neuroscience and its medical literature, Cochrane, 56, is much like the lead character in the 2000 movie "Memento." A motorcycle accident he had when he was 30 left him with profound brain damage, in the process destroying his episodic memory. Cochrane can't recall events of his pre-accident days. He can't form memories of his current life. He can't picture the future. He lives in the now, and recently started to use a palm pilot to remind himself when to break for lunch from his part-time job at a local library and when to stop restacking books to catch his ride home. Without the device, Cochrane admits, he would get hungry but wouldn't remember to eat. "I wouldn't know what time to go for lunch," he says in an interview. Cochrane's misfortune has proved to be a boon for science, giving researchers who study the brain a unique living laboratory. From the beginning his parents, Irving and Ruth Cochrane, have understood the importance of what their son can teach scientists. © 2007 The Canadian Press.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 10997 - Posted: 06.24.2010

WASHINGTON - Government scientists are investigating whether a Pfizer Inc. drug used to help smokers quit cigarettes also increases suicidal thoughts and violent behavior. The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday said it has received reports of mood disorders and erratic behavior among patients taking Chantix. The drug won regulatory approval last year to aid adults trying to quit smoking and sales totaled $101 million. FDA said it is still gathering information about the drug, but advised doctors to closely monitor patients taking Chantix for behavior changes. The agency said the changes have often been reported within days or weeks of people first taking the drug. Pfizer said Tuesday it added information about the reports to the product’s label, but stressed “there is no scientific evidence establishing a causal relationship between Chantix and these events.” Pfizer said in a statement there were no suicides in a 5,000-patient study of the drug. FDA said it is investigating at least one incident of a patient who died while reportedly taking the drug. © 2007 The Associated Press.

Keyword: Depression; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 10996 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Attractiveness is hereditary in the insect world, new findings from the United Kingdom suggest. In research published Tuesday in the journal Current Biology, a team of scientists from the University of Exeter found that attractive fruitfly fathers had attractive sons. The study did not look at particular attractive characteristics, but rather attractiveness to females as a whole. "That attractive males father attractive sons is assumed by many sexual selection models," the report said, citing benefits to females through their offspring and manipulation of females by sexy males, "but in general, there is a lack of evidence for this fundamental genetic association." The researchers searched for the hereditary sexy link by studying fruitfly Drosophila simulans and measuring the amount of time it took the flies, and then in turn their offspring, to mate. Mating time is a judge of attractiveness, the researchers explained in their study, because female fruitflies can thwart male sexual efforts by walking away, ignoring them and barring them access by refusing to open their vaginal plates. © CBC 2007

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 10995 - Posted: 06.24.2010

It takes a lot to convince Bill Klein of something so contrary to what he believed. For 30 years the Northwestern University neuroscientist, like many of his colleagues, did not believe that Alzheimer's disease had anything to do with diabetes. "I told students who were saying that there might be a connection between diabetes and Alzheimer's disease that it just wasn't the case," recalls Klein. But a collaboration with his colleague, Wei-Qin Zhao, showing that the brains of Alzheimer's patients are insulin resistant, began to change his mind. Zhao "is one of the leaders in showing that insulin receptors in the brain are really important in learning and memory," says Klein. In normal brains, brain cells process insulin, allowing memories to form. Klein explains that in people with Alzheimer's disease "what's happening is insulin is there but it's not effective — the receptors have become insensitive." That's similar to type 2 diabetes, "where insulin is being made at least at the beginning but the body doesn't respond well to it and that's throughout the body," explains Klein. © ScienCentral, 2000-2007.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Obesity
Link ID: 10994 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The brains of migraine sufferers are thicker in an area that helps process sensory information, new research from a team of Massachusetts-based scientists suggests. The study, to be published in the Nov. 20 issue of the journal Neurology, measured the thickness of the somatosensory cortex — the part of the brain responsible for processing information related to touch such as temperature and pain — and found the area to be 21 per cent thicker on average in brains affected by migraines. Previous research on the SSC has found that it becomes thinner in neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer's disease. It thickens with motor training and learning. The research team measured the thickness of the SSC in 24 migraine patients, half of whom experienced auras — such as flickering lights, loss of vision or numbness — and compared the results with 12 subjects of the same sex and age who did not suffer from migraines. "Migraineurs had on average thicker SSCs than the control group," the study said, with the most significant changes measured in the area of the SSC that processes information for the head and face. Additionally, the study said that patients who experienced migraines without auras showed thickening in a larger area of the cortex. "Repeated migraine attacks may lead to, or be the result of, these structural changes in the brain," study author Dr. Nouchine Hadjkhani said in a release. © CBC 2007

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 10993 - Posted: 06.24.2010

An experimental form of gene therapy for Parkinson's disease has been shown to produce promising results. US scientists treated 12 patients with a virus genetically modified to carry a human gene which dampens down the nerve cells over-excited by Parkinson's. Now brain scans have revealed significant improvements - which were still present a year later. The study, led by the University of New York, features in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. However, the work is still at an early stage. The main aim was to test whether the therapy was safe. Scientists delivered the gene only to one side of the brain - that which controls movement on the side of the body most affected by Parkinson's - to reduce the potential risk. It makes an inhibitory chemical called GABA that turns down the activity in a key part of the pathway which controls movement. The US team tested the impact of the therapy by using a form of brain imaging known as positron emission tomography (PET) to track changes in the brain. They focused on two discrete brain networks - one that regulates movement, and another that affects thinking processes. Only the motor networks were altered by the therapy - but this was all the researchers had hoped for. The scans showed that the motor network on the untreated side of the body got worse, and that on the treated side got better. (C)BBC

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 10992 - Posted: 11.20.2007

While eating less, purging and exercising to stay slim are still largely the preoccupations of teenage girls, teenage boys are increasingly following suit, a sweeping new U.S. study has found. Researchers found that between 1995 and 2005, 54 per cent of girls in their study reported they dieted, while 10 per cent said they used diet products, eight per cent admitted to purging, 67 per cent exercised, and 43 per cent exercised vigorously to lose weight. And among male teenagers, the researchers found that the prevalence of weight-control behaviours rose. Over the same time period, 24 per cent of boys overall reported that they dieted — with the prevalence rising almost every year in the 10-year study period. The researchers, at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., studied data from 1995 to 2005 gleaned by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention via a biennial survey of high-school students in grades nine to 12. The data were self-reported, with students categorizing themselves as "white," "black" or "Hispanic" in questionnaires. The findings were published Oct. 29 ahead of print in the International Journal of Eating Disorders. © CBC 2007

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 10991 - Posted: 06.24.2010