Ewen Callaway Geneticists used just 21 dogs to find the genes that code for the Rhodesian ridgeback's contrary hair.A. BACCHELLA/NATUREPL.COMMan's best friend is becoming the geneticist's too. Researchers have made good on the dog genome's promise: a quick-and-dirty way to find the genes responsible for physical traits using just a couple of dozen pooches and a gene chip. Kerstin Lindblad-Toh, of the Broad Institute of Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and her colleagues have devised a method of locating the genes responsible for specific traits that requires as few as 10 animals with the feature and 10 without — as long as they are all the same breed1. The team has also identified the genes that give the Rhodesian ridgeback breed its ridge but additionally predispose the dogs to a crippling developmental disease called dermoid sinus2. Such feats were predicted when Lindblad-Toh's team mapped the dog genome3 but this is the first time they have been achieved. The technique exploits the unique evolutionary history of dogs, which humans tamed from grey wolves between 15,000 and 100,000 years ago. Over centuries, humans have bred dogs, selecting for traits such as size and ability to herd sheep. Most of the 400 breeds descend from just a handful of hounds. The result: vast stretches of genetic similarity in dogs of the same breed, allowing geneticists to spot the few differences relatively easily. “Here you have the perfect genetic model,” says Leif Andersson, a biologist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, in Uppsala, Sweden, who co-leads the project. © 2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 10809 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Steve Mitchell Neuroscientists have taken a step closer to a physiological explanation of why some people work and play well with others. Two areas in the brain appear to have key roles in how people conform with social norms. These parts of the brain mature slowly, which may help explain why adolescents are less easily cowed by the threat of punishment than are adults. All societies have social norms or widely shared beliefs about how people should behave in a given situation. But little is known about how the brain processes the possibility of punishment for violating these norms. To gain insight into this phenomena, a team led by Manfred Spitzer of the University of Ulm in Germany used a technique known as functional magnetic resonance imaging to determine which areas in the brain were most active in 23 men making decisions that could result in social punishment. The men were given money and asked to decide how much of it to share with someone else. The men knew that the other person could punish them by reducing some or all of their money if they decided the initial shared amount was unfair. Several areas of the men's brains were active, but the regions that seemed to be the most involved in how the men made their decisions included the lateral orbitofrontal cortex and the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the researchers report in the 4 October issue of Neuron. These areas, which reside near the front of the brain, have previously been associated with social moral judgments. © 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Emotions; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 10808 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A combination of two drugs can selectively block pain-sensing neurons in rats without impairing movement or other sensations such as touch, according to a new study by National Institutes of Health (NIH)-supported investigators. The finding suggests an improved way to treat pain from childbirth and surgical procedures. It may also lead to new treatments to help the millions of Americans who suffer from chronic pain. The study used a combination of capsaicin — the substance that makes chili peppers hot — and a drug called QX-314. This combination exploits a characteristic unique to pain-sensing neurons, also called nociceptors, in order to block their activity without impairing signals from other cells. In contrast, most pain relievers used for surgical procedures block activity in all types of neurons. This can cause numbness, paralysis and other nervous system disturbances. "The Holy Grail in pain science is to eliminate pathologic pain without impairing thinking, alertness, coordination, or other vital functions of the nervous system. This finding shows that a specific combination of two molecules can block only pain-related neurons. It holds the promise of major future breakthroughs for the millions of persons who suffer with disabling pain," says Story C. Landis, Ph.D., director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) at the NIH, which funds the investigators' research along with the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). The study appears in the October 4, 2007, issue of Nature.[1]

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 10807 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By David Biello The doughnut-shaped machine swallows the nun, who is outfitted in a plain T-shirt and loose hospital pants rather than her usual brown habit and long veil. She wears earplugs and rests her head on foam cushions to dampen the device’s roar, as loud as a jet engine. Supercooled giant magnets generate intense fields around the nun’s head in a high-tech attempt to read her mind as she communes with her deity. The Carmelite nun and 14 of her Catholic sisters have left their cloistered lives temporarily for this claustrophobic blue tube that bears little resemblance to the wooden prayer stall or sparse room where such mystical experiences usually occur. Each of these nuns answered a call for volunteers “who have had an experience of intense union with God” and agreed to participate in an experiment devised by neuroscientist Mario Beauregard of the University of Montreal. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Beauregard seeks to pinpoint the brain areas that are active while the nuns recall the most powerful religious epiphany of their lives, a time they experienced a profound connection with the divine. The question: Is there a God spot in the brain? The spiritual quest may be as old as humankind itself, but now there is a new place to look: inside our heads. Using fMRI and other tools of modern neuroscience, researchers are attempting to pin down what happens in the brain when people experience mystical awakenings during prayer and meditation or during spontaneous utterances inspired by religious fervor. © 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc

Keyword: Emotions; Brain imaging
Link ID: 10806 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By LINDSEY TANNER CHICAGO - Investing in depressed employees - quickly getting them treatment and even offering telephone psychotherapy - can cut absenteeism while improving workers' health, a study suggests. Many employers view mental health coverage as a financial black hole, but the study shows that spending money on depression is a smart business move, said researcher Dr. Philip Wang. Wang works for the National Institute of Mental Health, which funded the study. Employees who got the aggressive intervention worked on average about two weeks more during the yearlong study than those who got the usual care - advice to see their doctor or seek a mental health specialist. Also, more workers in the intervention group were still employed by year's end - 93 percent vs. 88 percent - savings that helped employers avoid hiring and training costs, the researchers said. In addition, intervention employees were almost 40 percent more likely to recover from depression during the yearlong study, which is reported in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association. © 2002-2007 redOrbit.com.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 10805 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists may have discovered a tangible benefit to leading a conscientious life - a reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease. The Rush University Medical Center in Chicago examined nearly 1,000 Catholic nuns, priests and brothers. Those who rated themselves highly conscientious had an 89% lower risk of Alzheimer's than those who thought they were the least self-disciplined. The study appears in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry. Critics warned against drawing conclusions for the general population, but the researchers said the group they studied, although all devoutly religious, contained a broad spectrum of personality types. None of the participants had dementia when the study started in 1994, but 176 went on to develop the disease. The researchers asked the volunteers to rank themselves on a five-point scale to determine just how conscientious they were. They also carried out medical and neurological tests each year until 2006. The average score on the conscientious test was 34. Those who scored 40 or higher were found to be much less likely to develop Alzheimer's, and had a slower general rate of mental decline than those who scored 28 or lower. When the researchers took into account a combination of risk factors, including smoking, inactivity and limited social connections, they still found that the dutiful people had a 54% lower risk of Alzheimer's compared to people with the lowest scores for conscientiousness. (C)BBC

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 10804 - Posted: 10.02.2007

By ALAN SCHWARZ WEST HARTFORD, Conn. — Hannah Stohler sat beside the piano she could no longer play, in the living room that spun like a carousel, in the chair in which she tried to read but could not remember a word. Ten months after her third concussion while playing high school soccer knocked her into a winter-long haze of headaches and dizziness and depression that few around her could comprehend, Stohler recalled how she once viewed concussions. “I thought they were a football injury — a boy thing,” said Stohler, a junior at Conard High School in West Hartford, Conn. “Those guys are taught to hit hard and knock people to the ground. But anyone can get a concussion, and I don’t think a lot of girls recognize that. They have no idea how awful the effects can be — it changes your life.” Stohler, 16, has more company than most people know. While football does have the most concussions (and controversy over their treatment) in high school athletics, girls competing in sports like soccer and basketball are more susceptible to concussions than boys are in the same sports, studies show. According to a study to be published in the Journal of Athletic Training, in high school soccer, girls sustained concussions 68 percent more often than boys did. Female concussion rates in high school basketball were almost three times higher than among boys. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 10803 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Clare Porter & Daniel Weissman Memories provide us a personal history and a sense of identity. There are times, however, when we'd like to forget a social blunder or other embarrassing incident -- or in some cases, a memory so traumatic that it is painful to recall. Soldiers who have experienced horrific events may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), emotional distress stemming from an inability to stop recalling traumatic events. Our comfort, and sometimes our mental health, can depend on suppressing such memories. How do our brains manage this task? An emotional memory has many components. For example, the memory of a car accident might be associated with the sound of tires squealing, the sight of two cars colliding, the smell of gasoline, and feelings of fear and panic that build as the accident unfolds. One might imagine that suppressing such a memory would require suppressing each of the individual components. Brendan Depue, Tim Curran and Marie Banich, all of the University of Colorado, explored this hypothesis in their study entitled "Prefrontal Regions Orchestrate Suppression of Emotional Memories via a Two-Phase Process." Human participants were trained to associate each of several female faces with a distinct photograph of an emotionally distressing event (such as a car crash). Later, they were shown each of the faces in turn and asked either to think or to not think about the associated photograph. While participants were performing this task, the authors used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure their brain activity. (Functional MRI reveals where blood flows in the brain when a stimulus is presented, thereby indirectly indicating which regions become active). After the fMRI scan was completed, participants were given a memory test in which they were shown each face and asked to describe the photograph it had been paired with. © 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Emotions
Link ID: 10802 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A combination of psychotherapy and antidepressant medication appears to be the most effective treatment for adolescents with major depressive disorder — more than medication alone or psychotherapy alone, according to results from a major clinical trial funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The study was published in the October 2007 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry. The long-term results of the Treatment for Adolescents with Depression Study (TADS) found that when adolescents received fluoxetine (Prozac) alone or in combination with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) over the course of 36 weeks, they recovered faster than those who were receiving CBT alone. However, taking fluoxetine alone appeared to pose some safety concerns for the teens. During treatment, those taking fluoxetine alone had higher rates of suicidal thinking (15 percent) than those in combination treatment (8 percent) and those in CBT alone (6 percent), particularly in the early stages of treatment. This suggests that while treatment with fluoxetine may speed recovery, adding CBT provides additional safeguards for those vulnerable to suicide, according to the researchers. "Depression in teens is a serious illness that can and should be treated aggressively," said NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel, M.D. "TADS provides compelling evidence for families and clinicians that the most effective way to treat depression in teens is with a two-pronged approach. It reassures us that antidepressant medication combined with psychotherapy is an effective and safe way to help teens recover from this disabling illness."

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 10801 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Alison Motluk Anorexia and ecstasy use activate some of the same brain pathways, according to researchers who used mice to arrive at their conclusions. The findings hint that the condition works in a similar way to drug addiction, and may also point the way towards new drugs treatments for the eating disorder. Those diagnosed with anorexia nervosa restrict their food intake even though they may be in desperate need of energy. The condition has one of the highest mortality rates for any mental disorder, and there are few effective treatments currently available. Valerie Compan at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Montpellier, France, is one of a growing number of researchers who believes that anorexia works in a similar way to addiction and that sufferers become "hooked" on the self-control involved. After noticing that ecstasy (also called MDMA) use induces appetite suppression, she decided to investigate possible similarities further. Compan and colleagues focused on the nucleus accumbens, a reward centre in the brain with a high density of serotonin receptors – known as 5-HT4 receptors – that are known to play a role in addictive behaviour. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 10800 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Treating people who suffer from obstructive sleep apnea by administering continuous positive airway pressure can lower a person's risk of heart attack and stroke, a small study suggests. Obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, is a condition in which a person's airway is partially or completely blocked during sleep, leading to a lack of oxygen and frequent waking. According to the study, it occurs in nine per cent of middle-aged women and 24 per cent of men. A CT scan of a brain following a stroke. Obstructive sleep apnea is associated with an increased risk of death from heart disease or stroke. (CBC) The condition is associated with an increased risk of death from heart disease or stroke. "The majority of patients with OSA share several risk factors for atherosclerosis [the hardening of the arteries leading to heart disease], including obesity, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, insulin resistance, and hyperglycemia," said T. Douglas Bradley and Dai Yumino, both of the Sleep Research Laboratory at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute at the Centre for Sleep Medicine and Circadian Biology at the University of Toronto, in an editorial in the same issue of the journal. © CBC 2007

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 10799 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health have discovered two gene differences-- or "markers"-- that seem to increase the risk of suicidal thoughts after starting an antidepressant. If confirmed, the finding could lead to a test to identify patients at risk for the rare but serious adverse reaction. They say that's crucial because untreated depression is the most important cause of actual suicides. "Antidepressants are the treatment for depression and the treatment for depression is the best way to prevent suicide," says Gonzalo Laje, who led the NIMH work. "Our long term goal is to make sure that people with depression feel that they can safely take an antidepressant." The Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) issued a "Black Box" warning -- its highest-level warning-- against this side effect in children and adolescents. But, following that warning, in 2004 actual suicides spiked in those age groups. (Read this reporter's commentary on that agency's expansion of the warning to young adults here). NIMH researchers attribute that to a decrease in antidepressant prescriptions. (Statistics for 2005 and on are not yet available.) © ScienCentral, 2000-2007

Keyword: Depression; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 10798 - Posted: 06.24.2010

PHOENIX - It sounds like science fiction but it’s true: A killer amoeba living in lakes enters the body through the nose and attacks the brain where it feeds until you die. Even though encounters with the microscopic bug are extraordinarily rare, it’s killed six boys and young men this year. The spike in cases has health officials concerned, and they are predicting more cases in the future. “This is definitely something we need to track,” said Michael Beach, a specialist in recreational waterborne illnesses for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “This is a heat-loving amoeba. As water temperatures go up, it does better,” Beach said. “In future decades, as temperatures rise, we’d expect to see more cases.” According to the CDC, the amoeba called Naegleria fowleri (nuh-GLEER-ee-uh FOWL’-erh-eye) killed 23 people in the United States, from 1995 to 2004. This year health officials noticed a spike with six cases — three in Florida, two in Texas and one in Arizona. The CDC knows of only several hundred cases worldwide since its discovery in Australia in the 1960s. In Arizona, David Evans said nobody knew his son, Aaron, was infected with the amoeba until after the 14-year-old died on Sept. 17. At first, the teen seemed to be suffering from nothing more than a headache. © 2007 MSNBC.com © 2007 Microsoft

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 10797 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Kevin Ochsner Few questions are more fundamental than that of how we learn. Indeed, this question has been central to psychological inquiry from the time of the first experimental psychology labs in the late 1800s. Ever since, a primary goal of psychology research has been to describe how we acquire and retain the information necessary for survival. Most of this work, however, has concerned direct, first-person learning. There is another mode of learning, however, famously alluded to by Yogi Berra when he said, "You can observe a lot just by watching." As these sage and inimitable words suggest, we learn not just through direct experience but also by observing others' experiences. Although (vicarious) learning through observation is common, and in many situations may be more adaptive and efficient than learning through direct experience, few researchers had tried to unpack the bases of this ability in the brain until recently. The study under review here, "Learning Fears by Observing Others: The Neural Systems of Social Fear Transmission," by Andreas Olsson and Elizabeth Phelps, takes the exploration of vicarious learning to a new level. In this brain imaging study, Olsson and Phelps recorded neural activity in participants who were watching a video clip of someone learning through classical fear conditioning, which involves learning to associate a neutral stimulus (like a colored shape) with an intrinsically aversive stimulus (in this case a shock). © 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Emotions
Link ID: 10796 - Posted: 06.24.2010

CBC News Cockroaches, like humans, have dramatic daily variations in their ability to learn, say biologists at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. More pointedly, cockroaches could use a strong cup of coffee in the morning, but appear to need no boost in the evening, according to their study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Professor Terry Page holds one of the cockroaches that he used in his research. (Daniel Dubois, Vanderbilt University) "This is the first example of an insect whose ability to learn is controlled by its biological clock," Terry Page, professor of biological sciences, said in a release. Most studies on learning and circadian rhythms have focused on mammals. For example, recent experiments with humans have found that people's ability to acquire new information is reduced when their biological clocks are disrupted. In the current study, the researchers taught individual cockroaches to associate peppermint — a scent they normally find slightly distasteful — with sugar water, causing them to favour it over vanilla, a scent they like very much. The researchers trained individual cockroaches at different times in the 24-hour day/night cycle and then tested them to see how long they remembered the association. © CBC 2007

Keyword: Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 10795 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Steve Mitchell Two genes involved in chemical signaling in the brain may help explain why antidepressants increase the risk of suicide in some people, according to a new study. Concerns about the safety of antidepressants arose a few years ago when studies began to indicate that the drugs increased the risk of suicide in some adolescents and children. British regulatory officials in 2003 banned the use in minors of several medications called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), and in 2004 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration concluded that all classes of antidepressants should carry a warning about the risk in children, adolescents, and young adults (ScienceNOW, 3 February 2004). Although the suicide link is well-established, it is not clear how antidepressants trigger suicidal behavior or thoughts in some people. Seeking to shed some light on this question, a team of researchers led by Francis McMahon of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Maryland, looked at 68 genes in 1915 adults with major depression who were treated with the SSRI citalopram. The researchers were searching for genetic variations that might be associated with suicidal thoughts, and they may have hit pay dirt. © 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Depression; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 10794 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Brian Vastag A mercury-containing vaccine preservative is not associated with problems in speech, intelligence, memory, coordination, attention, or other measures of childhood development, a large new study finds. Child-health experts say that the results should allay concerns that thimerosal, a preservative first added to vaccines in the 1930s, affects children's brains. "The study was enough to convince me that this small amount of mercury ... was not harmful to the children," says Michael Goldstein, vice president of the St. Paul, Minn.–based American Academy of Neurology. "I think it's one more piece of evidence that thimerosal doesn't have any negative association with health outcomes," says Penelope Dennehy, professor of pediatrics at the Brown University School of Medicine in Providence, R.I. The study, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, enrolled 1,047 children, from 7 to 10 years old, whose health needs had been covered from birth by four health maintenance organizations. The researchers combed the health plans' records to assess how much thimerosal each child received through the first 7 months of life. ©2007 Science Service

Keyword: Autism; Neurotoxins
Link ID: 10793 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Sara Selis Clinicians and patients are increasingly seeking nonconventional treatments as adjuncts to conventional therapies for schizophrenia. Here, a discussion of the most promising complementary therapies and how to use them. Given the burdens of living with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, and the increasing emphasis on improving patients' quality of life, it's no wonder that clinicians and patients are seeking additional treatment options for psychotic disorders. Clinicians who use, study and advocate for nonconventional or "complementary" therapies in psychiatry -- treatments ranging from dietary supplements to Chinese herbs to yoga -- see an opportunity to expand the acceptance and use of these therapies as adjuncts to conventional treatments for schizophrenia. These practitioners acknowledge that the evidence supporting most nonconventional therapies for schizophrenia is still decidedly modest: The number of rigorous, well-designed studies is limited, and research findings on several of the therapies are inconsistent. Still, dozens of studies in recent years have found evidence that when combined with antipsychotics, several nontraditional therapies -- most notably Omega-3 fatty acids, glycine, folate, Chinese herbal medicines, yoga practices and spiritually focused group therapy -- yield measurable and sometimes clinically significant benefits in some schizophrenic patients. Based on limited and mainly small or uncontrolled studies, nonconventional therapies may be effective particularly in easing negative symptoms, cognitive symptoms and/or antipsychotic side effects. © 2007 CMP Healthcare Media LLC,

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 10792 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Sarah Yang, BERKELEY – Neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have for the first time measured the electrical activity of nerve cells and correlated it to changes in blood flow in response to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a noninvasive method to stimulate neurons in the brain. Their findings, reported in the Sept. 28 issue of the journal Science, could substantially improve the effectiveness of brain stimulation as a therapeutic and research tool. TMS works by generating magnetic pulses via a wire coil placed on top of the scalp. The pulses pass harmlessly through the skull and induce short, weak electrical currents that alter neural activity. Yet the relative scarcity of data describing the basic effects of TMS, and the uncertainty in how the method achieves its effects, prompted the researchers to conduct their own study. "There are potentially limitless applications in both the treatment of clinical disorders as well as in fundamental research in neuroscience," said Elena Allen, a graduate student at UC Berkeley's Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute (HWNI) and co-lead author of the study. "For example, TMS could be used to help determine what parts of the brain are used in object recognition or speech comprehension. However, to develop effective applications of TMS, it is first necessary to determine basic information about how the technique works." Copyright UC Regents

Keyword: Vision; Brain imaging
Link ID: 10791 - Posted: 06.24.2010

CBC News Compounds produced in the digestive system have been linked to autistic-type behaviour in laboratory settings, potentially demonstrating that what autistic children eat can alter their brain function, say scientists from the University of Western Ontario. They announced their findings Thursday in Ottawa. (CBC) UWO researchers investigated the "gut-brain" connection after many parents of autistic children reported significant improvements in the behaviour of their autistic children when they modified their diet, eliminating dairy and wheat products, Dr. Derrick MacFabe, the director of a research group at UWO in London, Ont., told CBC News Thursday. Researchers were particularly interested in one dietary characteristic the autistic children seemed to exhibit, he said. "Certainly, a lot of these children had peculiar cravings for high-carbohydrate foods that caused their behaviours," he said. "We were interested in finding a link between certain compounds that are produced by bacteria in the digestive system — particularly those occurring with early childhood infections." © CBC 2007

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 10790 - Posted: 06.24.2010