By Tamara Holt Mark Dewis is a king among flavor scientists. But right now, the director of flavor research and development at International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF), one of the world's biggest flavor companies, resembles nothing so much as a kid who can't wait for show-and-tell. He grins widely as he describes his new million-dollar machine. "There are only five of these in the world," he boasts, throwing open the lab door. Filling the center of the room from floor to ceiling is what looks like a small building with a lot of stainless-steel tubing attached. It's a high-performance liquid chromatograph, an instrument that separates compounds according to their chemical affinity with certain solvents and resins. Dewis calls it a "Sepbox," which is his particular instrument's trade name, and it's one of the largest on the planet. It is, in effect, a giant mouth, and in cabinets along the wall are jars full of the food he feeds it. The labels look familiar—"oregano," "olives," "coffee"—but there are three jars of each, broken down into flakes or waxy pellets by different solvents. Dewis digs up all kinds of things to be tasted by his stainless-steel pet. When food scientists suspect that there might be, for example, a molecule in orange peel that makes citrus taste particularly fresh, Dewis feeds extracts of peel to the Sepbox, and out the other end come hundreds of chemical compounds, separated into groups, for further analysis. Then, a few years later, a new flavor of energy drink hits the market. © 2007 Popular Science

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 10910 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Susan Courtney When we choose between two courses of action, are we aware of all the things that influence that decision? Particularly when deliberation leads us to take a less familiar or more difficult course, scientists often refer to a decision as an act of "cognitive control." Such calculated decisions were once assumed to be influenced only by consciously perceived information, especially when the decision involved preparation for some action. But a recent paper by Hakwan Lau and Richard Passingham, "Unconscious Activation of the Cognitive Control System in the Human Prefrontal Cortex," demonstrates that the influences we are not aware of can hold greater sway than those we can consciously reject. We make countless "decisions" each day without conscious deliberation. For example, when we gaze at an unfamiliar scene, we cannot take in all the information at once. Objects in the scene compete for our attention. If we're looking around with no particular goal in mind, we tend to focus on the objects most visually different from their surrounding background (for example, a bright bird against a dark backdrop) or those that experience or evolution have taught us are the most important, such as sudden movement or facial features -- particularly threatening or fearful expressions. If we do have a goal, then our attention will be drawn to objects related to it, such as when we attend to anything red or striped in a "Where's Waldo" picture. Stimulus-driven and goal-driven influences alike, then, bias the outcome of the competition for our attention among a scene's many aspects. © 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Emotions
Link ID: 10909 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A new analysis suggests that about 3.4 million Americans age 71 and older — one in seven people in that age group — have dementia, and 2.4 million of them have Alzheimer's disease (AD). The study, supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is the latest in a series of analyses attempting to assess the prevalence of dementia and AD, the most common form of dementia. Published online this week in Neuroepidemiology, the study is the first to estimate rates of dementia and AD using a nationally representative sample of older adults across the United States. Brenda L. Plassman, Ph.D., of Duke University Medical Center, with Kenneth M. Langa, M.D., Ph.D., and David R. Weir, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan, Robert B. Wallace, Ph.D., of the University of Iowa, and others, conducted the analysis as part of the Aging, Demographics and Memory Study (ADAMS). ADAMS is a sub-study of the larger Health and Retirement Study (HRS), the leading resource for data on the combined health and economic circumstances of Americans over age 50. ADAMS and the HRS are sponsored by the National Institute on Aging, a component of NIH, under a cooperative agreement with the University of Michigan. The study highlights the nationwide reach of dementia, which affects not only those with the disease, but their families and communities as well. "As the population ages during the next few decades, the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease will increase several-fold unless effective interventions are discovered and implemented," said NIA Director Richard J. Hodes, M.D. "These data underscore the urgency of research in this area."

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 10908 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jocelyn Kaiser SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA--Variants in two genes may explain why psychotherapy helps only some people with depression, according to a preliminary study presented here Friday at the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics. Researchers are uncovering more and more evidence that genetics play a role in how people respond to psychotropic drugs. In 2006, for example, scientists identified a gene variant that seems to explain why some patients respond better to antidepressants than others (ScienceNOW, 20 March 2006). And just last month, researchers found that variants in two genes could account for the increased suicide risk associated with antidepressants (ScienceNOW, 28 September). Psychiatrist John Kelsoe and colleagues at the University of California (UC), San Diego, wanted to know if genetic variants could also account for why some people respond better to psychotherapy. Graduate student Amelia Kotte gathered therapy records and blood samples for 65 volunteers who had completed 16 weeks of psychotherapy, some of whom were also taking antidepressants. Kelsoe's team then analyzed DNA in the patients' blood for five genes thought to be involved in responses to antidepressants, because some brain-imaging studies have suggested biological similarities in responses to both antidepressants and psychotherapy. Two of these genes seem to affect responses to psychotherapy, Kotte reported at the meeting. Patients with two copies of a particular variant of a gene called NTRK2 showed more improvement from psychotherapy than did those with one or no copy of the variant, dropping eight points on a 63-point assessment called the Beck Depression Inventory compared with a five-point drop for those with one or no copy of the variant. © 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Depression; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 10907 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Roxanne Khamsi You may not want a monkey to balance your chequebook, but you still have to give them credit – new research supports the idea that not only can monkeys understand written numbers, but that individual brain cells may become dedicated to specific numbers. The small study of two rhesus monkeys reveals that cells in their brains respond selectively to specific number values – regardless of whether the amount is represented by dots on a screen or an Arabic numeral. For example, a given brain cell in the monkey will respond to the number three, but not the number one. The results suggest that individual cells in human brains might also have a fine-tuned preference for specific numerical values. While monkeys might not yet have mastered calculus, recent studies have shown that they can learn understand some basic aspects of arithmetic and, in a rare case, multiplication. Andreas Nieder at the University of Tübingen in Germany and colleagues trained two rhesus monkeys to count by showing them various numbers of dots on a screen followed by Arabic numerals. The monkeys had to pull a lever to indicate when the numeral matched the preceding count of dots. An accurate response earned the animals a cup of apple juice, which they consider a treat. The researchers also reversed the task, showing the Arabic numerals several seconds before the dots. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 10906 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Declan Butler Two children with a common neurodegenerative disease are seeing early signs of success from a pioneering gene-therapy treatment, researchers report this week. The results raise hopes for a treatment for adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), and, the researchers add, mark the first successful use of an attenuated HIV virus to carry a therapeutic gene into a patient’s cells. HIV is a promising vector for transferring corrective genes into a host — it can penetrate directly into cell nuclei, making it a theoretically efficient way to introduce new genetic material. But until now it hadn’t been proven in a clinical setting. This early success potentially opens the door to better treatments for many other diseases involving the bone marrow and blood cells, such as leukaemia, thalassemia and sickle-cell disease, the researchers say. The results, from two 7-year-old Spanish children with ALD, were announced on Sunday 28 October at the fifteenth Congress of the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy in Rotterdam, the Netherlands ALD is caused by a mutation on the X chromosome. This mutation causes degradation of the insulating sheaths that surround neurons and allow them to signal properly. The condition was made famous by Lorenzo's Oil , the Hollywood film outlining one family’s fight to help their son. The most severe, cerebral form of ALD affects one in 17,000 people, with two-thirds of sufferers being children. It progresses slowly at first, but if no bone-marrow transplant is available it can quickly progress to cause brain damage and death. © 2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Glia; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 10905 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By MARLENE BELFORT My father killed himself at 46. So not surprisingly, at 46 I felt nervous and a bit depressed. As a scientist, I looked at the facts, the data. Life was fundamentally fine — married to a supportive man, with three healthy sons and a good career. But the anxiety prompted me to seek a psychiatrist. His diagnosis was burnout — dysthymia, to use the clinical term. There was no need for medication, but I could benefit from psychotherapy, to deal with my repressed feelings as the child of a suicide. Skeptical at first — this analytical stuff is not science! — I gradually began to appreciate the parallels between his discipline and mine. In science and in psychotherapy, one approaches a problem from different angles, observes, hypothesizes, discards theories and begins to draw conclusions. When the evidence from various directions converges on a point, that point becomes a discovery, a new “truth.” After four years of therapy, all seemed well. But three years later, I suddenly began to feel profoundly depressed and returned to therapy. “Let’s try an antidepressant, and I bet you’ll come out of it,” my psychiatrist said. Medication loomed large. I had never taken more than aspirin, not even for childbirth. But as the depression deepened, I capitulated, using antidepressants in various combinations and at increasing doses. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 10904 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By GINA KOLATA Clinton T. Rubin knows full well that his recent results are surprising — that no one has been more taken aback than he. And he cautions that it is far too soon to leap to conclusions about humans. But still, he says, what if ... ? Less Fat in Vibrated Mice And no wonder, other scientists say. Dr. Rubin, director of the Center for Biotechnology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is reporting that in mice, a simple treatment that does not involve drugs appears to be directing cells to turn into bone instead of fat. All he does is put mice on a platform that buzzes at such a low frequency that some people cannot even feel it. The mice stand there for 15 minutes a day, five days a week. Afterward, they have 27 percent less fat than mice that did not stand on the platform — and correspondingly more bone. “I was the biggest skeptic in the world,” Dr. Rubin said. “And I sit here and say, ‘This can’t possibly be happening.’ I feel like the credibility of my scientific career is sitting on a razor’s edge between ‘Wow, this is really cool,’ and ‘These people are nuts.’” The responses to his work bear out that feeling. While some scientists are enthusiastic, others are skeptical. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 10903 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Rick Weiss Oh, the light! The autumn light! Is there anything more glorious than an October day, awash in the sun's low-slung amber rays? And yet . . . perhaps you feel the dread, too. The looming inkiness that, like the tide, crawls up your legs a little higher each day, turning that honeyed light to molasses and molasses to muck until you realize, too late, that the birds have left and the world has gone dark. Dark when you wake up, dark when you go home. In simpler times we slept more in winter, but modern living denies us that luxury. So increasingly each day, soft-white lights from yonder windows break -- along with halogens, tungstens and compact fluorescents. And when we can't stand it anymore, we resort to manipulation, declaring that 6 in the morning is now 5. You got a problem with that, take it up in the spring. Now science is finding that our manhandling of light and time is making us sick. Artificial illumination is fooling the body's biological clock into releasing key wakefulness hormones at the wrong times, contributing to seasonal fatigue and depression. And daylight saving time, extended by Congress this year for an extra four weeks, risks dragging even more Americans into a winter funk. Much more than mental health is at stake. Women who work at night, out of sync with the light, have recently been shown to have higher rates of breast cancer -- so much so that an arm of the World Health Organization will announce in December that it is classifying shift work as a "probable carcinogen." © 2007 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 10902 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Until recently, only one of the approximately 30,000 genes in the human genome has been linked to risk of late-onset Alzheimer's disease (AD). Now, a new NIH-supported study in the Nov. 19, 2007, issue of NeuroReport (now online) used a publicly shared genome dataset to strongly support findings that variation in the sequence of the SORL1 gene may be a second risk factor gene for late-onset disease. Identifying the genes involved in AD ultimately may help determine who may be at greater risk and enable researchers to zero in on pathways to develop new treatments. The National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), funded the study, along with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and a number of private foundations in the U.S., Canada and Japan. Three mutated genes — amyloid precursor protein (APP) and the presenilins (PS1 and PS2) — have been shown to cause rare, early-onset, familial forms of the disease which mostly occur in middle age. A gene variant — apolipoprotein ċ4 (APO-ċ4) — was the first confirmed risk factor for the common form of late-onset AD, which typically occurs after age 65. Earlier this year, researchers first linked variations in the gene SORL1 to late-onset AD. The analysis involved 14 collaborating institutions in North America, Europe and Asia, and 6,600 people who donated blood and tissue for genetic typing. To learn more, go to http://www.nia.nih.gov/NewsAndEvents/PressReleases/PR20070114SORL1gene.htm.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 10901 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Nikhil Swaminathan If you watched football or the final game of the World Series yesterday, you may have noticed the following: When the announcers were speaking on camera, it seemed as though the sound of their voices were coming from their mouths. But when the commentary occurred off-screen as the game action was shown, it was quite apparent the TV speakers were the actual sound source of the endless color-commentary babble. This processing phenomenon in which a visual cue affects how one perceives an auditory stimulus—ventriloquism is another example—may be explained by new research that pinpointed neurons in a primitive brain area that responds to both visual and auditory information. This area, the inferior colliculus region in the midbrain, less than half an inch in diameter, is a way station for nearly all auditory signals as they travel from the ear to the cortex (the brain's central processing area). "It's important if you're going to be integrating visual and auditory information that they be on a level playing field, so both are encoded the same way," says Jennifer Groh, an associate professor at Duke University's Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and a co-author of the new work published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. "It's important for the auditory pathway to know where the eye is pointed." Groh and her colleagues planted electrodes in the brains of three monkeys, targeting 180 individual neurons (or nerve cells) in the inferior colliculus. The animals were placed in a dark chamber where a light-emitting diode (LED) would switch on in one of several predetermined locations. After the monkeys attended to and fixated on the light for a few fractions of a second, a short clip of white noise would play from speakers in the chamber. © 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc

Keyword: Hearing; Vision
Link ID: 10900 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By LINDSEY TANNER CHICAGO -- The country's leading pediatricians group is making its strongest push yet to have all children screened for autism twice by age 2, warning of symptoms such as babies who don't babble at 9 months and 1-year-olds who don't point to toys. The advice is meant to help both parents and doctors spot autism sooner. There is no cure for the disorder, but experts say that early therapy can lessen its severity. Symptoms to watch for and the call for early screening come in two new reports. They are being released by the American Academy of Pediatrics on Monday at its annual meeting in San Francisco and will appear in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics and on the group's Web site _ http://www.aap.org/. The reports list numerous warning signs, such as a 4-month-old not smiling at the sound of Mom or Dad's voice, or the loss of language or social skills at any age. Experts say one in 150 U.S. children have the troubling developmental disorder. "Parents come into your office now saying 'I'm worried about autism.' Ten years ago, they didn't know what it was," said Dr. Chris Johnson of the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. She co-authored the reports. © 2007 The Associated Press

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 10899 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ALAN SCHWARZ Vin Ferrara, a former Harvard quarterback, was looking for an aspirin in his medicine cabinet when his eyes fixed upon a ribbed plastic bottle used to squirt saline into sinuses. Ferrara squeezed the bottle, then pounded on it — finding that it cushioned soft and hard blows with equal aplomb, almost intelligence. “This is it,” Ferrara declared. Three years later, Ferrara’s squirt bottle has led to a promising new technology to protect football players from concussions. Football helmets have evolved over more than a century from crude leather bonnets to face-masked, polycarbonate battering rams. But they still often fail to protect brains from the sudden forces that cause concussions. Studies have found that 10 to 50 percent of high school players each season sustain concussions, whose effects can range from persistent memory problems and depression to coma and death. Contemporary helmet manufacturers have made a point of improving protection against concussions. But experts suspect that Ferrara, who sustained several concussions as a player himself, has developed a radically effective design. Rather than being lined with rows of traditional foam or urethane, Ferrara’s helmet features 18 black, thermoplastic shock absorbers filled with air that — not unlike his squirt bottle — can accept a wide range of forces and still moderate the sudden jarring of the head that causes concussion. Moreover, laboratory tests have shown that the disks can withstand hundreds of impacts without any notable degradation in performance, a longtime drawback of helmets’ traditional foam. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 10898 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Troops exposed to explosions in Iraq and Afghanistan are to be checked for brain injury, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed. The MoD said questionnaires had been sent to troops to see if they had signs of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). The survey was triggered by fears in the US Army that up to 20% of soldiers were returning with the condition. Symptoms include memory loss, anxiety and depression. In 90% of cases they disappear within three months. The Guardian reported that the Pentagon had designated mTBI as one of the "signature injuries" suffered by soldiers coming back from Iraq. The MoD said it was collaborating with the US Army to investigate the condition, but a spokesman emphasised that it did not necessarily accept that the disorder was as widespread is it is believed to be by the Americans. The spokesman said: "It is a very, very complex area. We have no way of knowing whether that [the US assessment] is accurate because there is a level of dispute as to what constitutes mTBI." He said symptoms may last for as little as 72 hours - and had gone in 80% of cases within two weeks, and in more than 90% of cases within three months. The questionnaire-based self assessment is currently being trialled in Iraq and Afghanistan, and will be brought to all those who may be affected in the new year. The questionnaires are supported by a helpline and a website, and there is an mTBI treatment programme at the military rehabilitation centre at Headley Court in Surrey. The condition is caused by a blow to the head or by being close to an explosion. It can also be sustained in contact sports such as boxing or rugby. (C)BBC

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 10897 - Posted: 10.27.2007

By Maureen Farrell Do you sweat at the thought of flying, giving a speech or even going to a party? Join the club: Anxiety disorders — including specific phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorders — afflict 40 million Americans aged 18 and older (18% of that group), according to the 2005 National Co-Morbidity study, a mental health survey. While fear is a natural (and practical) response to danger, phobias are exaggerated responses to situations that, in the cold light of day, aren't really all that dangerous. And yet they remain terribly difficult to overcome. A big reason has to do with the way most people respond to fear — by avoiding it. Whether it's closed spaces or packed audiences, the more you duck those tough spots, the more you'll fear them. "Catastrophic thoughts lead to fear, which leads to avoidance, which leads to more catastrophic thoughts," says Dr. Dennis Greenberger, psychologist and professor of clinical psychology at the University of California at Irvine. "It's a vicious cycle that exacerbates the fear over time." One weapon is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), a form of psychotherapy that involves changing behaviors and thoughts to overcome depression, self-loathing and fear. CBT proponents believe that bad feelings begin with bad thoughts; meet those head on, they say, and almost any fear can be tamed. © 2007 Forbes.com

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 10896 - Posted: 06.24.2010

CBC News Lowered dopamine levels prompt obese individuals to eat more food in an attempt to achieve that "feel-good" feeling that the chemical generates, a new study suggests. Receptors of dopamine, a chemical in the brain that is associated with pleasure, were found to be lower in obese rats, and their levels rose when food intake was restricted. The study was conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory. The findings are published in the journal Synapse and are now available online. "This research corroborates brain-imaging studies conducted at Brookhaven that found decreased levels of dopamine D2 receptors in obese people compared with normal-weight people," said Brookhaven neuroscientist Panayotis Thanos, lead author of the study. "Dopamine is one of the neurotransmitters modulating the reinforcing properties of food," reads the report. The researchers aren't sure whether obesity leads to reduced dopamine receptor levels or whether the receptors are themselves responsible for making people obese. However, their studies show that decreasing food intake helped increase dopamine receptor sensitivity. © CBC 2007

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 10895 - Posted: 06.24.2010

SANTIAGO - Chilean scientists have made a discovery in the brains of rats that they say may help treat drug addiction and ease the side effects of some medications. Researchers at the Pontifical Catholic University in Santiago say they identified a region of the brain, the insular cortex, that plays an important role in drug craving. Tests on amphetamine-addicted laboratory rats showed that when the insular cortex was deactivated by injecting a drug that halted brain cell activity, the rats showed no signs of addiction. When the insular cortex was reactivated, the rats again showed signs of craving amphetamines, according to the research to be published in Friday's edition of the journal Science. "(This) indicates to us that this region of the brain processes information about the physiological states of the body and may guide behavior," said Fernando Torrealba, one of the researchers. In a second experiment, Torrealba's team injected rats with lithium, a drug used to treat mental illness that has side effects including malaise and intestinal pain. (c) Reuters 2007.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 10894 - Posted: 10.26.2007

WASHINGTON - Your brain is supposed to fire a "hold your horses" signal when faced with a tough choice. But a brain implant that stops the tremors of Parkinson's disease may block that signal — a new explanation for why some Parkinson's patients become hugely impulsive. Scientists have long known that anti-Parkinson medications occasionally spark compulsions like pathological gambling. Research published Thursday found another treatment, a pacemaker-like brain implant, can trigger a completely different kind of impulsiveness. How different? The drugs leave a subset of patients unlikely to learn from bad experiences, like a losing poker hand. The brain implant doesn't hinder learning. In contrast, those patients can make hasty decisions as the brain loses its automatic tendency to hesitate when faced with conflict, University of Arizona researchers reported online in the journal Science. In fact, the first patient they studied displayed an alarming example when he saw something across the room he wanted and tried to dash over without his wheelchair. Neuroscientist Michael Frank had to catch the man before he fell. "Deep brain stimulation," or DBS, involves placing electrodes into a small region called the subthalamic nucleus, an area important for controlling movement. But it also is where scientists believe the brain yells: "Stop, weigh your options!" Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.

Keyword: Parkinsons; Emotions
Link ID: 10893 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Heidi Ledford An analysis of 50,000-year-old Neanderthal DNA suggests that at least some of the ancient hominids probably had pale skin and red hair. The findings, published this week in Science 1, are based on the sequence of a single gene, called mc1r . Humans with a less functional form of the MC1R protein are more likely to be fair skinned — an adaptation that may have helped inhabitants of high latitudes synthesize vitamin D more efficiently in limited sunlight. Analyses of Neanderthal DNA are always subject to the problem of fossil samples being contaminated with modern human DNA in the lab or the field. But Carles Lalueza-Fox of the University of Barcelona, Spain, with Holger Römpler of the University of Leipzig in Germany and colleagues, found that the mc1r gene in two European Neanderthal fossils they studied contained a single base-pair change that seems to be unique to Neanderthals. “We were lucky we found a variant that had not been described in modern humans,” says co-author Michael Hofreiter of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. “That made it unlikely to be human contamination.” The researchers re-sequenced the applicable region of the gene multiple times, then asked two additional labs to repeat the experiments using fresh extracts. They also sequenced fragments of the mc1r gene from the researchers in each lab, as well as the archaeologists and palaeontologists who had handled the fossils. And they searched databases containing mc1r sequence from 2,800 humans and tested several hundred additional samples. © 2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Evolution; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 10892 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Roxanne Khamsi Rats addicted to amphetamines temporarily 'forget' their drug cravings after receiving targeted brain injections of lidocaine, a medication commonly used by dentists to numb patients' gums. Researchers say that the medication worked by inactivating an area of the brain known as the insular cortex or insula, which has previously been implicated in controlling drug addiction. They hope that altering activity in the insula might one day work to treat drug addiction in people. Other experts, however, note that addiction is a complex problem that seems to involve multiple brain regions. Previous research has shown that brain regions such as the prefrontal cortex and nucleus accumbens drive drug cravings by responding to reward signals from the chemical dopamine in the brain. But Fernando Torrealba at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago believed that the insula, a brain region located behind the ears, might somehow exert a large influence on addiction. The insula appears to monitor the body's heart rate, blood sugar, and other functions, and prompt conscious feelings of hunger and cravings in response. Recent work has shown that damage to this area can cause smokers to give up cigarettes overnight. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 10891 - Posted: 06.24.2010