Patients taking medications to treat bipolar disorder are more likely to get well faster and stay well if they receive intensive psychotherapy, according to results from the Systematic Treatment Enhancement Program for Bipolar Disorder (STEP-BD), funded by the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The results are published in the April 2007 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry. Bipolar disorder is a debilitating illness marked by severe mood swings between depression and mania that affects 2.6 percent of Americans in any given year. “We know that medication is an important component in the treatment of bipolar illness. These new results suggest that adding specific, targeted psychotherapy to medication may help give patients a better shot at lasting recovery,” said NIH Director Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni. “STEP-BD is helping us identify the best tools — both medications and psychosocial treatments — that patients and their clinicians can use to battle the symptoms of this illness,” said NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel, M.D. Psychotherapy is routinely employed as a means to treat bipolar illness in conjunction with medication, but the extent to which psychotherapy is effective has been unclear. In addition, most psychotherapeutic studies have been limited to a single site and compared only one type of treatment to routine care. Thus, in addition to examining the role of medication, STEP-BD set out to compare several types of psychotherapy and pinpoint the most effective treatments and treatment combinations.

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Depression
Link ID: 10151 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Roxanne Khamsi Rich people's brains are less stimulated by small cash rewards than poor people's brains, according to a new imaging study that focused on the brain's "reward centre". The study provides biological and behavioural evidence supporting a basic tenet of economics known as "marginal utility" – that people value the same amount of money less as they become richer, the researchers say. Philippe Tobler at the University of Cambridge in the UK and colleagues recruited 14 students with a wide range of incomes – from their parents or part-time jobs – and bank savings. The students' brains were monitored for activity – using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), while they viewed abstract images (made of circles and rectangles) on a computer screen. Three of the abstract images would always precede a clear picture of a 20 pence coin, which is worth about US $0.40, while another three abstract images were linked to a scrambled picture of the same coin. When participants correctly predicted that a clear coin picture would follow the abstract image shown on the computer screen, and indicated their guess by pressing a button, they banked a real 20p cash reward. Twenty pence would not be enough to buy a pack of gum in the UK. Each student completed 210 trials of the guessing task. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 10150 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Michael Hopkin British neuroscientists are planning to investigate whether playing soccer contributes to the development of motor neurone disease. The move comes after three amateur footballers playing in the same league developed the disease, which normally affects less than one person in every 50,000 each year. Experts are now aiming to launch a full epidemiological study of professional footballers and motor neurone disease (MND) patients, to see whether the sport really does raise the incidence of the disease among those who play it at a high level. Details of the patients, all of whom were committed footballers, are published in the journal Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis1 — a publication named after the most common form of MND. The patients range in age between 56 and 61 years old, and were all diagnosed with the disease within a decade of each other. "What is unusual about this group is that they are all friends who developed MND at the same time," says Ammar Al-Chalabi of King's College London, one of the experts who described the cases. "A cluster like this could occur by chance, but the odds are quite long." The three have several potential risk factors in common, including having been electrocuted by mains electricity at some point during their lives. But the authors note that the three were very keen at football, playing more than twice a week — almost as much as professional players. ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease
Link ID: 10149 - Posted: 06.24.2010

CHAPEL HILL –A study led by scientists from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill may have identified a molecular mechanism involved in the development of schizophrenia. In studying the postmortem brain tissue of adults who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, the researchers found that levels of certain gene-regulating molecules called microRNAs were lower among schizophrenia patients than in persons who were free of psychiatric illness. "In many genetic diseases, such as Huntington's disease or cystic fibrosis, the basis is a gene mutation that leads to a malformed protein. But with other complex genetic disorders – such as schizophrenia, many cancers, and diabetes – we find not mutated proteins, but correctly formed proteins in incorrect amounts," said study lead author and UNC professor of psychiatry Dr. Diana Perkins. The research appears this week in the online edition of the journal Genome Biology. "To our knowledge this study is the first to associate altered expression of microRNAs with schizophrenia," the authors stated. Since the 1950s, scientists have known that the genetic code stored in DNA is first transcribed into messenger RNA (mRNA) which is then the template from which the body's protein building blocks are made. MicroRNAs are a newly discovered class of mRNA that does not carry the code for a protein. Instead, these tiny strands of RNA act by binding to matching pieces of the protein coding mRNA, thus preventing the translation of mRNA to protein.

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 10148 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By STEPHANIE SAUL Two weeks after the Food and Drug Administration issued safety warnings about widely used sleeping pills, the drug maker Merck canceled a venture into the shifting market for insomnia medications. Merck and its Danish partner, H. Lundbeck, announced that a safe and effective sleeping pill had eluded their scientists after years of study, and they canceled their joint product, gaboxadol. Unusual side effects — including hallucinations and disorientation — showed up in the studies. The drug also failed a trial of its efficacy. During a conference call yesterday, Lundbeck’s senior vice president for drug development, Anders Gersel Pedersen, said, “We did not want to bring a product to the market with such a shallow risk-benefit ratio.” Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., had listed gaboxadol as one of three drug applications it planned to file this year, and called the termination “clearly disappointing.” As recently as two years ago, some Merck scientists had viewed the product as a potential blockbuster, possibly safer and as effective as sleeping medications currently on the market. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 10147 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JANE GROSS Mary Blake Carver gazes from the cover of a neurology magazine this month, under the headline “I’m Still Here!” She often feels like shouting the message to her friends, her children, her husband. Ms. Carver, 55, is among the growing ranks of people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, when short-term memory is patchy, organizational skills fail, attention wanders and initiative comes and goes. But there is still a window of opportunity — maybe one year, maybe five — to reason, communicate and go about her life with a bit of help from those around her. Yet Ms. Carver is often lonely and bored. Her husband leaves her out of many dinner table conversations, both say, because she cannot keep up with the normal patter. He insists on buttoning her coat when she fumbles at the task. She was fired as a massage therapist because she lost track of time. So Ms. Carver fills her days by walking her neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, always with her dog, so she looks like “an ordinary person,” she said, not someone with “nothing better to do.” Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 10146 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Behind every wave of disgust that comes your way may be a biological imperative much greater than the urge to lose your lunch, according to a growing body of research by a UCLA anthropologist. "The reason we experience disgust today is that the response protected our ancestors," said Dan Fessler, associate professor of anthropology and director of UCLA’s Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture. "The emotion allowed our ancestors to survive long enough to produce offspring, who in turn passed the same sensitivities on to us." Across a series of subtle and ingenious studies, Fessler has managed to illuminate the ways in which disgust may have served to protect our ancestors during such biologically precarious situations as pregnancy and to maximize the likelihood of our forbears’ reproduction when they were at their most fertile. Fessler’s research also illustrates how the emotional response that helped our ancestors may not serve us as well today and may actually promote xenophobia, sexual prejudices and a range of other irrational reactions. "We often respond to today’s world with yesterday’s adaptations," Fessler said. "That’s why, for instance, we’re more afraid of snakes than cars, even though we’re much more likely to die today as a result of an encounter with a car than a reptile."

Keyword: Emotions; Evolution
Link ID: 10145 - Posted: 06.24.2010

When press releases from NEJM, NIMH and Mass General came in the email alerting me that antidepressants are no more effective than placebo for bipolar patients on a mood stabilizer, my first reaction wasn't, oh good, we can save 15 bucks a month in Zoloft co-pays. It was, don't tell my wife, because it's unpleasant enough when she runs out of them for a few days. When I also received a phone call from a media-relations person inquiring whether I'd received the email, it was obvious she would find out anyway, so I figured I better follow up. Gary Sachs, the lead investigator, was really nice. He reassured me that no one is suggesting that my sweetie should mess with the medication combination that's brought her a year of sanity after many years of hell. "I think the message for people who are doing well is we always believe in staying with what's working," he said. "On the other hand, if you're having a new episode of depression you should not feel there's any particular reason why you have to be treated with these drugs called antidepressants, because if you have bipolar depression they have not been shown to work for you. That doesn't mean they necessarily won't in every case, it doesn't mean you won't get better. It also is pretty clear that if you add them to a mood stabilizer they appear to be quite safe." © ScienCentral, 2000-2007

Keyword: Depression; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 10144 - Posted: 06.24.2010

For depressed people with bipolar disorder who are taking a mood stabilizer, adding an antidepressant medication is no more effective than a placebo (sugar pill), according to results published online on March 28, 2007 in the New England Journal of Medicine. The results are part of the large-scale, multi-site Systematic Treatment Enhancement Program for Bipolar Disorder (STEP-BD), a $26.8 million clinical trial funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Bipolar disorder, a sometimes debilitating illness marked by severe mood swings between depression and mania, is usually treated with mood stabilizers such as lithium, valproate, carbamazepine or other medications that reduce mania. However, depression is more common than mania in bipolar disorder, and depressive episodes tend to last longer than episodes of mania. Antidepressant medications are often used in addition to a mood stabilizer for treating bipolar depression, but they are thought to confer a serious risk of a switch from a depressive episode to a manic episode. Finding the right treatment balance for people with bipolar disorder is a constant challenge; STEP-BD aims to identify the best treatment options. "Treating depression in people with bipolar disorder is notoriously difficult," said NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel. "STEP-BD sought to determine if adding an antidepressant to a mood stabilizer is effective and safe in treating depressive episodes. The results suggest that antidepressants are safe but not more effective than placebo as assessed in a large number of people with bipolar disorder. "

Keyword: Depression; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 10143 - Posted: 03.29.2007

John Whitfield The extinction of the dinosaurs had little impact on the evolution of today's mammals, say researchers. After building a family tree of nearly every living mammal, they show that the main groups arose millions of years before the dinosaurs went extinct, and did not become dominant until millions of years after they disappeared. The wipe-out of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period some 65 million years ago opened up room and resources for others. But it did not specifically clear a path for the diversity of animals that would evolve into today's mammals, including humans, says evolutionary biologist Olaf Bininda-Emonds of the Technical University of Munich, Germany: "After the dinosaurs went extinct, they still didn't diversify." There was a burst of mammal evolution just after the dinosaur extinction, Bininda-Emonds and colleagues report in Nature1. But it occurred in groups that have either gone extinct, such as a group of hoofed carnivores called the mesonychids, or which now have few species, such as the sloths. The currently successful mammal groups, including primates, kept a quiet profile; they didn't start branching out until about 50 million years ago. ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 10142 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Kickboxing can cause damage to the part of the brain which controls hormone production, a study has shown. Around a million people around the world take part in the sport. The Turkish study found head injuries in kickboxing can cause damage to the pituitary gland, which affects the body's metabolism and stress response. In Clinical Endocrinology, researchers say amateurs with head injuries should be screened. But kickboxers say they are unaware of such injuries. The pituitary is a pea-sized gland, weighing no more than a gram, which is found at the base of the brain, just behind the bridge of the nose. It produces a range of hormones which control, among other things, the body's regulation of metabolism, coping with daily stress, general wellbeing and sex drive amongst other areas. The team at Erciyes University Medical School in Turkey measured the levels of these hormones in 22 amateur kickboxers (16 men and six women) and compared these to healthy people of the same age and sex. It was found that 27% - six - of the kickboxers were deficient in at least one hormone compared with the healthy group. The researchers say the head is one of the most common sites of injury for both amateur and professional kickboxers. They said more research was needed to understand how the pituitary gland is damaged and to develop more effective head protection gear for kickboxers. (C)BBC

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 10141 - Posted: 03.29.2007

By Daniel Engber The sports world's latest doping scandal began last month, when federal and state agents raided a seedy office building in Jupiter, Fla., and a pharmacy in Orlando. According to a pair of embedded reporters from Sports Illustrated, the investigators busted up a "massive illegal distribution network" for performance-enhancing drugs; the fallout, they say, "promises to rock sports." It's worth noting that what SI touted as a "Steroid Sting" has produced very little evidence of, well, steroids. Instead, the disclosures and public shamings have focused on human growth hormone, an almost-undetectable substance that has recently replaced anabolic steroids as the trendy, performance-enhancing boogeyman. SI's ongoing series of reports has fingered baseball players Jerry Hairston Jr. and Gary Matthews Jr., pro wrestlers Edge and the Hurricane, and boxing champion Evander Holyfield for ordering HGH. Even fictional athletes have had their reputations tainted by the stuff. A few weeks ago, Sylvester Stallone, portrayer of Rocky Balboa, was charged with importing 48 vials of synthetic growth hormone into Australia. The media haven't spent much time making a distinction between HGH and steroids. An AP story, titled "After BALCO, Another Steroid Scandal," glosses over any differences between the two, drawing a straight line from the BALCO investigation to the busts in Florida. But Jerry Hairston isn't Barry Bonds. Sure, both of these guys probably took banned substances in an effort to boost their stats, and both were involved in major drug busts involving large numbers of Major League players. But it's just plain wrong to put growth hormone in the same category as anabolic steroids. In the sports version of the war on drugs, Bonds was shooting heroin while Hairston was smoking marijuana. 2007 Washington Post.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 10140 - Posted: 03.29.2007

Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — Thin may be in now, but prehistoric men 15,000 years ago prefered full-figured gals, suggest dozens of flint figurines excavated from a Paleolithic hunting site in Poland. Since almost identical depictions have been found elsewhere throughout Europe, the figurines indicate a shared artistic tradition existed even then. The findings are published in the current issue of the journal Antiquity. Co-author Romuald Schild explained that the artifacts offer "a cultural inventory" for the late Magdalenian era (18,000-10,000 years ago). In the paper, Schild and colleagues Bodil Bratlund, Else Kolstrup and Jan Fiedorczuk describe the carvings as "stylized voluptuous female outlines" that "are cut out of flint flakes." The same symbolic representations of women displayed in the artifacts extend across Europe, added Schild, a researcher in the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology at the Polish Academy of Sciences. Because the site, near the Polish village of Wilczyce, served as a late autumn/early winter hunting camp, it is likely men created the figurines when they were taking breaks from hunting arctic foxes, woolly rhinoceros and other game. © 2007 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 10139 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Joshua Davis BILL CHOISSER WAS 48 when he first recognized himself. He was standing in his bathroom, looking in the mirror when it happened. A strand of hair fell down – he had been growing it out for the first time. The strand draped toward a nose. He understood that it was a nose, but then it hit him forcefully that it was his nose. He looked a little higher, stared into his own eyes, and saw … himself. For most of his childhood, Choisser thought he was normal. He just assumed that nobody saw faces. But slowly, it dawned on him that he was different. Other people recognized their mothers on the street. He did not. During the 1970s, as a small-town lawyer in the Illinois Ozarks, he struggled to convince clients that he was competent even though he couldn't find them in court. He never greeted the judges when he passed them on the street – everyone looked similarly blank to him – and he developed a reputation for arrogance. His father, also a lawyer, told him to pay more attention. His mother grew distant from him. He felt like he lived in a ghost world. Not being able to see his own face left him feeling hollow. One day in 1979, he quit, left town, and set out to find a better way of being in the world. At 32, he headed west and landed a job as a number cruncher at a construction firm in San Francisco. The job isolated him – he spent his days staring at formulas – but that was a good thing: He didn't have to talk to people much. With 1,500 miles between him and southern Illinois, he felt a measure of freedom. He started to wear colorful bandannas, and he let his hair grow. When it got long enough, he found that it helped him see himself. Before that, he'd had to deduce his presence: I'm the only one in the room, so that must be me in the mirror. Now that he had long hair and a wild-looking scarf on his head, he could recognize his image. He felt the beginnings of an identity. © 2007 CondéNet Inc.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 10138 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By RICHARD WASSERSUG, M.D. My daughter and I were talking about outing oneself — the act of disclosing one’s inner identity. The discussion was not purely academic. “Dad, when most people out themselves, they open the closet door and just come out,” she said. “You, Dad, you went through the wall.” I had just told my daughter that I was a eunuch. It all started with a diagnosis of prostate cancer in 1998, when I was 52. Two years later, after failed surgery and radiation, I started hormonal therapy. This meant taking chemicals that slow the growth of prostate cancer cells by depriving them of androgen — in effect, castrating the patient. Chemical castration is the common treatment for advanced prostate cancer, and more than 250,000 American men are taking these drugs. But few people know of any men taking them, simply because we hide. It is shameful to be castrated. My initial response to the therapy was typical. My mood plummeted along with my testosterone level. Hair vanished from my arms and legs. Muscle disappeared, fat appeared. My memory suffered. Not only was I now more likely to lose my car keys, I occasionally couldn’t remember where I left the car. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 10137 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JOHN TIERNEY ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 26 — The case of the United States v. William Eliot Hurwitz, which began in federal court here on Monday, is about much more than one physician. It’s a battle over who sets the rules for treating patients who are in pain: narcotics agents and prosecutors, or doctors and scientists. Dr. Hurwitz, depending on which side you listen to, is either the most infamous doctor-turned-drug-trafficker in America or a compassionate physician being persecuted because a few patients duped him. When Dr. Hurwitz, who is now 62, was sent to prison in 2004 for 25 years on drug trafficking and other charges, the United States attorney for Eastern Virginia, Paul J. McNulty, called the conviction “a major achievement in the government’s efforts to rid the pain management community of the tiny percentage of doctors who fail to follow the law and prescribe to known drug dealers and abusers.” Siobhan Reynold, the president of an advocacy group called the Pain Relief Network, hailed Dr. Hurwitz’s singular dedication and compared his plight to Galileo’s. Some of the country’s foremost researchers in pain treatment and addiction supported his appeal for a retrial, which was ordered because the jury in the first case was improperly instructed to ignore whether Dr. Hurwitz had acted in “good faith.” These scientists say they are upset by how their research has been distorted by prosecutors in this case, and suppressed by the Drug Enforcement Administration in its campaign against the misuse of OxyContin and other opioid painkillers. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 10136 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Roxanne Khamsi Just like Goldilocks, mice have an innate sense of what makes a good bed: a specific group of cells in their brains becomes active when they see a potential nesting spot – but only if it perfectly matches their size. This set of brain cells responds regardless of whether the bed has a circular or square shape, suggesting that mice can understand abstract concepts, such as the idea of a bed, according to researchers. Joe Tsien at Boston University in Massachusetts, US, and colleagues used probes to record the electrical activity of brain cells in mice as the animals wandered around their cages. Each probe picks up on the signalling activity of roughly 200 cells at a time. They noticed that a probe in one mouse recorded a storm of brain cell activity each time the animal stepped into its nesting container. Mice prefer to sleep in small, containers – typically, a bowl the size of their body. The probe that picked up on the cell activity in response to the nesting container recorded specifically from the middle of a brain region known as the hippocampus, which processes memories. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 10135 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Heidi Ledford As a general rule, a man who learns that his children are genetically his brother's offspring would have good cause for distress. But for one group of primates, that wouldn't necessarily mean that mum has been unfaithful, a new study finds. The reason, says Corinna Ross of the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, is that these primates are often genetic mosaics containing some cells that belonged to their siblings. And when those cells happen to be sperm, a male can sire offspring that are genetically nephews and nieces rather than sons and daughters. This strange genetic mixing could be one of the reasons why these animals tend to raise their families in large collectives, with everyone lending a hand; animals are thought to generally give more parental attention to children with a strong genetic similarity to themselves. The discovery was made accidentally when Ross was studying small, tree-dwelling primates called black tufted-eared marmosets (Callithrix kuhlii) at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. The marmosets that she studied were being kept in captivity, with two senior males for every reproducing female. Ross wanted to test the paternity of the colony's offspring, to find out which male was the father of each child; to do this, she looked at hair samples of various animals to determine their genetic make-up. ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 10134 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By STEVE LOHR Confident multitaskers of the world, could I have your attention? Think you can juggle phone calls, e-mail, instant messages and computer work to get more done in a time-starved world? Read on, preferably shutting out the cacophony of digital devices for a while. Several research reports, both recently published and not yet published, provide evidence of the limits of multitasking. The findings, according to neuroscientists, psychologists and management professors, suggest that many people would be wise to curb their multitasking behavior when working in an office, studying or driving a car. These experts have some basic advice. Check e-mail messages once an hour, at most. Listening to soothing background music while studying may improve concentration. But other distractions — most songs with lyrics, instant messaging, television shows — hamper performance. Driving while talking on a cellphone, even with a hands-free headset, is a bad idea. In short, the answer appears to lie in managing the technology, instead of merely yielding to its incessant tug. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 10133 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By DANIEL B. SMITH Angelo, a London-born scientist in his early 30s with sandy brown hair, round wire-frame glasses and a slight, unobtrusive stammer, vividly recalls the day he began to hear voices. It was Jan. 7, 2001, and he had recently passed his Ph.D. oral exams in chemistry at an American university, where, for the previous four and a half years, he conducted research into infrared electromagnetism. Angelo was walking home from the laboratory when, all of a sudden, he heard two voices in his head. “It was like hearing thoughts in my mind that were not mine,” he explained recently. “They identified themselves as Andrew and Oliver, two angels. In my mind’s eye, I could see an image of a bald, middle-aged man dressed in white against a white background. This, I was told, was Oliver.” What the angels said, to Angelo’s horror, was that in the coming days, he would die of a brain hemorrhage. Terrified, Angelo hurried home and locked himself into his apartment. For three long days he waited out his fate, at which time his supervisor drove him to a local hospital, where Angelo was admitted to the psychiatric ward. It was his first time under psychiatric care. He had never heard voices before. His diagnosis was schizophrenia with depressive overtones. Angelo remembers his time at the hospital as the deepening of a nightmare. On top of his natural confusion and fear over the shattering of his psychological stability, Angelo did not react well to the antipsychotic he’d been prescribed, risperidone, which is meant to alleviate the symptoms of schizophrenia by reducing the level of dopamine in the brain. In Angelo’s case, the pills had a predominantly negative effect. His voices remained strong and disturbing — an unshakable presence, quiet only in sleep — while he grew sluggish and enervated. “If you think of the mind as a flowing river of thoughts,” he told me in an e-mail message, “the drug made my mind feel like a slow-moving river of treacle.” Several days into his stay, Angelo’s parents flew to the United States from London and took him back home. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 10132 - Posted: 06.24.2010