somewhere something incredible is waiting to be known-
Carl Sagan

Saturday, April 30, 2011

US stem cell research funding ban lifted by court



A US appeals court has overturned an earlier order to suspend federal funding of stem cell research.
The Washington court said opponents of the research, who say it is illegal because it involves the destruction of human embryos, were unlikely to succeed in their lawsuit to stop the funding.
The ruling marks a significant victory for US President Barack Obama, correspondents say.
President Obama lifted a ban on funding for stem cell research in March 2009.Soon after, US District Judge Royce Lamberth issued a temporary injunction on the move while a legal challenge went ahead - although this suspension was itself overruled on appeal, pending a final decision. The US Court of Appeals in Washington ruled 2-1 on Friday that a 1996 US law against federal funding of embryo destruction was "ambiguous", and "did not prohibit funding a research project in which an ESC (embryonic stem cell) will be used".

'Momentous day'

Scientists say the research could lead to breakthroughs for treatments of spinal cord injuries and diseases including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.Opponents, who include religious groups, argue that the research is unethical and illegal.The suit opposing federal funding, which was also backed by some Christian groups, was brought against the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The NIH and the White House both welcomed Friday's ruling.

"This is a momentous day - not only for science, but for the hopes of thousands of patients and their families who are relying on NIH-funded scientists to pursue life-saving discoveries and therapies that could come from stem cell research," NIH Director Francis Collins said in a statement.

White House spokesman Nick Papas said the decision was a victory for scientists and patients.
"Responsible stem cell research has the potential to treat some of our most devastating diseases and conditions and offers hope to families across the country and around the world," he said.

Friday, April 29, 2011

Bullying tendency wired in brain

Bullies' brains may be wired differently, the research suggests. Bullies' brains may be hardwired to have sadistic tendencies, US imaging research suggests. An area of the brain associated with reward lit up in scans when aggressive boys watched a video of someone inflicting pain. Boys without a history of unusual aggression had no such response, the study in Biological Psychology found. The aggressive teenagers also reacted more strongly to pain that was accidentally caused.

The small study of 16-18 year olds - eight with a "conduct disorder" and eight with no aggressive tendency - suggests in some boys, natural empathetic impulses may be disrupted in ways that increase aggression, the researchers said. A better understanding of the biological basis of these things is good to have but the danger is it causes people to leap to biological solutions - drugs - rather than other behavioural solutions
Dr Michael Eslea

Those with the conduct disorder had exhibited disruptive behaviour such as starting a fight, using a weapon and stealing after confronting a victim. Tests were done using functional MRI scans while the participants looked at video clips in which people endured pain accidentally, such as when a heavy bowl was dropped on their hands, and intentionally, such as when a person stepped on another's foot.

Strong response

Aggressive adolescents showed "a specific and very strong" activation of the amygdala and ventral striatum - areas of the brain that respond to feeling rewarded - when watching pain inflicted on others, suggesting they enjoyed watching pain, the researchers said. And unlike the control group, the boys with conduct disorder did not show activation of the parts of the area of the brain involved in self-regulation - known as the the medial prefrontal cortex and the temporoparietal junction. Using the same type of research, study leader Jean Decety, professor in psychology and psychiatry at the University of Chicago, has previously shown that seven to 12 year olds have naturally empathy for people in pain. This is the first study to use fMRI to study situations which would normally prompt people to be sympathetic.

"This work will help us better understand ways to work with juveniles inclined to aggression and violence."
Dr Michael Eslea, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Central Lancashire said the research was interesting but needed to be repeated in a larger sample.

"A better understanding of the biological basis of these things is good to have but the danger is it causes people to leap to biological solutions - drugs - rather than other behavioural solutions."




Thursday, April 28, 2011

Autism Checklist

A simple checklist that parents fill out in the waiting room may help doctors someday screen for warning signs of autism as early as a baby's first birthday. San Diego pediatricians tested the tool with more than 10,000 babies at their one-year checkups, looking for such things as how the tots babble, gesture and interact with others.The research, being published Thursday, is a first step in the quest for earlier autism screening. It's not ready for routine use, as more work is needed to verify its accuracy. But it also may prove valuable in finding more at-risk babies to study what causes the developmental disorder.
"There are subtle signs of autism at one year if you just look for them," said neuroscientist Karen Pierce of the University of California, San Diego, who led the study. "Let's just get these kids detected early and treated early." Recent data suggest about one in 100 U.S. children has some form of autism, which ranges from mild to severe problems with behaviour, communication and socialization. The American Academy of Pediatrics already urges autism screening during regular doctor visits at ages 18 months and 24 months. Yet a 2009 study found that on average, children aren't diagnosed until they're five.
Experts say early therapy can lessen autism's severity, even if they don't know exactly what types will prove best. "The earlier you start, the better," said Dr. Lisa Gilotty of the National Institute of Mental Health, which helped fund the study.

Hence the interest in younger screening.

"This is very exciting work, to think we may be able to identify children with autism this early," said Dr. Susan Hyman of the University of Rochester and a pediatrics academy autism specialist, who wasn't involved in the new study.But, she cautioned, it's not clear how best to do that: "I don't think screening for autism at 12 months is ready for prime time." Thursday's study uses a 24-question checklist written in easy-to-understand terms that parents can answer in about five minutes. It was developed a few years ago to detect broader signs of language or developmental delays.

Pierce signed up 137 pediatricians to use the questionnaire during every one-year checkup and refer babies who failed for further testing. Those youngsters were re-evaluated every six months to age three, when a diagnosis could be certain. Of 10,479 babies screened, 184 who were sent for further testing followed through — and 32 eventually were diagnosed with autism, Pierce reported Thursday in the Journal of Pediatrics.

That's consistent with expected rates of detection that young; Rochester's Hyman said some forms of autism don't become apparent until age two or even later.Numerous other children were diagnosed with language delay or some other developmental problems, so that in the end, the screening accurately predicted some problem in 75 per cent of those kids, Pierce calculated. But there were false alarms for one in four, who had no problems. The children began treatment at around 19 months. In addition, Pierce's program does MRI scans and other tests as part of broader research into autism's biological underpinnings, studies now limited by the few numbers of babies being identified as at risk when they're so young.

One big puzzle: Only a fraction of the total 1,318 babies who failed the initial screening were referred for follow-up. The study couldn't tell how much of that gap was recording error, or if doctors or parents weren't worried enough to follow up right away, or if families went elsewhere. Still, the study shows early screening is feasible in the hectic everyday offices of regular pediatricians. That's important as scientists now develop various screening tests, said Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer of Autism Speaks, which co-funded the work.

Pierce says other cities should consider the screening — but doctors first must know where to send families for follow-up testing. That can cost several thousand dollars, and state programs for free evaluation of at-risk children may have waiting lists.

For now, what should worry parents? Pierce's top concerns:

Lack of what she calls "shared attention." Around age one, babies should try to "pull your attention into their world," pointing to a bird and watching to see if you look, for example, or bringing you a toy, she said.


Lack of shared enjoyment, where a baby may smile at mom but not engage if other people try peek-a-boo.


Repetitive behaviours like spinning a car wheel rather than playing with the toy.


Language delays are worrisome if they accompany other problem signs, she said: "If they wave and they point, that's a good sign the brain is readying itself to be ready to speak."


Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Einstein Quotes

Men's and Women's Immune Systems Respond Differently to PTSD



ScienceDaily (Apr. 26, 2011) — Men and women had starkly different immune system responses to chronic post-traumatic stress disorder, with men showing no response and women showing a strong response, in two studies by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco.

While a robust immune response protects the body from foreign invaders, such as bacteria and viruses, an over-activated response causes inflammation, which can lead to such conditions as cardiovascular disease and arthritis. In a study published in the March, 2011 issue of Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, the authors took blood samples from 49 men (24 with PTSD and 25 controls) and 18 women (10 with PTSD and 8 controls). They then used gene microarray technology to determine which genes were activated in the subjects' monocytes, which are immune cells that regularly cross the barrier between the bloodstream and the brain, and thus give a broad picture of immune reaction in both the body and brain.

"We were looking for evidence of inflammation caused by immune activation," explained lead author Thomas Neylan, MD, director of the PTSD program at SFVAMC and a professor in residence of psychiatry at UCSF. "We know that people with PTSD have higher rates of cardiovascular disease and arthritis, which are diseases associated chronic inflammation. We also hoped that seeing which genes were expressed in PTSD might show us potential therapeutic approaches that we hadn't thought of."
The researchers found no evidence of increased immune activation among the men with PTSD compared to those without PTSD. In contrast, the women with PTSD showed significant evidence of immune activation compared to women without PTSD.

"Previous gene microarray studies on PTSD grouped men and women together, which gave inconclusive results," said senior investigator Lynn Pulliam, MS, PhD, chief of microbiology at SFVAMC and professor of laboratory medicine and medicine at UCSF. "This is the first time that it's been shown that men and women respond differently to PTSD on a very basic biological level."
Neylan characterized the finding as "unexpected."

The researchers do not know why there seems to be such a marked difference between men and women, said Neylan. However, in a study published in the January, 2011 issue (posted in April, 2011) of the journal Disease Markers, they analyzed data collected from the same subjects to explore one possible explanation: gender differences in cell signaling pathways.

"We know that gene expression patterns are determined by hormones and proteins that are circulating in the body, and we know that some of those hormones and proteins are produced in response to signals from the brain or central nervous system," explained lead author Aoife O'Donovan, PhD, a researcher in psychiatry at SFVAMC and UCSF. "These signaling pathways are used by the brain and central nervous system to communicate with the immune system and tell immune cells what to do."
The researchers used sophisticated bioinformatics software to look at three different signaling pathways associated with inflammation: NF-kappa B, glucocorticoid receptor (GR), and CREB/ATF.

In the NF-kappa B and GR pathways in both men and women with PTSD, they found evidence of signaling that could promote inflammation.


In the CREB/ATF pathway, however, they found what O'Donovan called "totally contrasting" effects: men with PTSD had increased signaling, which in turn could possibly lead to less inflammation, while women with PTSD had decreased signaling, which could lead to more inflammation.
"This particular pathway might be a clue to the gender difference in monocyte gene expression in PTSD," said Pulliam.

"It's still very early," cautioned O'Donovan, "but these bioinformatics results are telling us something about how PTSD could increase the risk for autoimmune disorders like arthritis as well as cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other diseases of aging. They also point us in the direction of some potential treatment targets, telling us where future investigative energy might be well spent."

Neylan emphasized that because of the small sample size, particularly among the women, the results of the two studies are suggestive rather than conclusive. "The next step is to look at larger groups of men and women, and we are working on that," he said.

Co-authors of the Brain, Behavior, and Immunity study are Bing Sun, MD, PhD, and Hans Rempel, PhD, of SFVAMC; Jessica Ross, MD, MS, of SFVAMC and UCSF; and Maryann Lenoci, MA, of SFVAMC.
Co-authors of the Disease Markers study are Bing Sun, MD, PhD; Steve Cole, PhD, of UCLA; Hans Rempel, PhD; and Maryann Lenoci, MA.

Both studies were supported by grants from the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs Sierra Pacific Mental Illness Research & Education Clinical Center. Some of the funds were administered by the Northern California Institute for Research and Education.



Tuesday, April 26, 2011

IQ testing results a function of motivation

IQ tests measure motivation - not just intelligence


IQ tests may not be a reliable measure of intelligence alone or a good predictor of future potential.
Intelligence tests are as much a measure of motivation as they are of mental ability, says research from the US. Researchers from Pennsylvania found that a high IQ score required both high intelligence and high motivation but a low IQ score could be the result of a lack of either factor.Incentives were also found to increase IQ scores by a noticeable margin.
The study is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Firstly, it analysed previous studies of how material incentives affected the performance of more than 2,000 people in intelligence tests. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, found that incentives increased all IQ scores, but particularly for those of individuals with lower baseline IQ scores.Then the same researchers tested how motivation impacted on the results of IQ tests and also on predictions of intelligence and performance in later life.

“Life is an IQ test and a personality test.”Dr James Thompson

UCL

By using data from a long-term study of 250 boys from adolescence to early adulthood, they were able to conclude that some individuals try harder than others in conditions where the stakes are low.
Therefore, the study says, "relying on IQ scores as a measure of intelligence may overestimate the predictive validity of intelligence."Getting a high score in an IQ test requires both high intelligence and competitive tendencies to motivate the test-taker to perform to the best of their ability.Dr James Thompson, senior honorary lecturer in psychology at University College London, said it had always been known that IQ test results are a combination of innate ability and other variables.
"Life is an IQ test and a personality test and an IQ result contains elements of both (but mostly intelligence)."If an IQ test doesn't motivate someone then that is a good predictor in itself."

Monday, April 25, 2011

Benefits of Chess

Armenia is making chess compulsory in schools, but could mandatory study of a board game really help children's academic performance and behaviour?Every child aged six or over in Armenia is now destined to learn chess. The authorities there believe compulsory lessons will "foster schoolchildren's intellectual development" and improve critical thinking skills. The country has plenty of reasons to believe in chess. It treats grandmasters like sports stars, championships are displayed on giant boards in cities and victories celebrated with the kind of frenzy most countries reserve for football. Chess is nothing less than a national obsession.It may only have a population of 3.2 million, but Armenia regularly beats powerhouses such as Russia, China and the US and its national team won gold at the International Chess Olympiad in 2006 and 2008.

Added to that, the Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has just been re-elected as chair of the Armenian Chess Federation.

Creative
Now the chess-mad country is investing nearly $1.5m (£920,000) to teach all of its children. But for other countries constantly strategising about how to boost child development and education, is making study of the Sicilian and the Queen's Gambit a good idea? Proponents of chess in schools do claim some evidence. A two-year study conducted in the US by Dr Stuart Marguilies found that learning chess improved reading test scores and reading performance in elementary schools.

In Armenia chess players are sports stars Another study by Professor Peter Dauvergne, who is also a chess master, concluded playing chess could raise IQ scores, strengthen problem solving skills, enhance memory and foster creative thinking. Malcolm Pein, chief executive of Chess in Schools and Communities, a programme that puts chess into UK schools, says there are lots of reasons why chess has a positive impact on primary school children.

"Not only does it give children good thinking skills and improve concentration, memory and calculation, but it teaches children to take responsibility for their actions. "There are also behavioural attitudes and social attributes to the game too. Children shake hands at the start, and although it's not deathly silent in classes, it's reasonably quiet and disciplined." Far from it just being the case that more academically-minded people are more likely to play chess, he says the game is a very universal and inclusive activity that can be played at all standards.

"Someone who is four can play someone who is 104, someone that can't walk around can play a top class athlete. Sometimes children that have been overlooked in other ways - maybe the quietest or physically smallest child in class - could be the best. "Chess is a very addictive process, a positive drug for children”
Malcolm Pein

Chess in Schools and Communities

"The other outstanding thing about chess is it's so cheap, so it can really help children in areas that are economically disadvantaged." Pein is a big supporter of chess being made compulsory at school and recently made a submission to the government's National Curriculum review. It recommended that one class of chess - "or other thinking games like bingo" - is made mandatory every week for children in Year 2 (aged six) or 3 (aged seven).He concedes the game can be challenging for young children, but argues that by the age of six or seven they are more than capable of picking it up.English grandmaster and Times chess correspondent Raymond Keene agrees with targeting six-year-olds at primary school - and not just because he thinks it is the optimum time to catch children with the potential to make it big.

"Chess draws from brain power, not experience - it's not like writing an epic. So if a child is good at six, they could be a grandmaster by the time they are 12," he enthuses. He says "chess is a very addictive process, a positive drug for children". Even when it is played online, it is much better than video games or television, he adds.

'Intriguing'

But although he thinks teaching chess in schools could be beneficial, he would stop short of making it compulsory."There are plenty of other things that could benefit from being compulsory too, I wonder whether it would be appropriate," he says."Also, in Armenia the government is knocking at an open door. Chess is already so embedded in its culture, it's bound up in its national psyche and ambitions. In the UK making it compulsory might actually turn people off."

Chess greats

Russia's Garry Kasparov has been ranked the World Number One most times - 23
Hungary's Judit Polgar has been ranked the World's Number One woman most times - 46
Norway's Magnus Carlsen has been ranked the World's Number One junior most times - 15

Source: World Chess Federation

Chess players may be convinced of chess' credentials, but could education experts be persuaded?

Katherine Birbalsingh, the teacher who came to public notice after a speech to the Conservative conference criticising school standards, and who is now setting up her own free school, says it is easy to see how chess would be a useful tool. "I'm a great believer in knowledge acquisition - and chess is obviously a skill - so I can understand why it would be a good thing to teach children. My question is, what would you lose instead? "There is so much to learn, so many subjects to put into the curriculum, it would be a shame to lose something like music or art for chess."

Chris Woodhead, the former chief inspector of schools in England, says providing chess in schools - either through clubs or classes - could be helpful, but compulsory classes are not the way forward. "I'm not sure whether it would have a beneficial impact, but chess is an activity many people find intriguing and satisfying, so it's got to be a good to have the option," he says.

Russell Hobby, the general secretary of The National Association of Head Teachers says fostering strategic thinking is an essential employability skill. But he can't support the idea of mandatory chess.
"No more compulsory subjects. It's about finding what works with each group of children." And in a curriculum already subject to numerous priorities, chess may struggle to make the grade.

Happiest places have highest numbers of suicides?


The happiest places sometimes also have the highest suicide rates, according to an intriguing new U.S. study.
Researchers who study how people's sense of well-being varies from place to place decided to compare their findings with suicide rates. "Discontented people in a happy place may feel particularly harshly treated by life," suggested Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick in England.A man walks past shop-front shutters painted by street artist Ben Eine in the East End of London. Living around people who are pretty satisfied with their lives, when you are not, may make you feel more miserable, researchers say. Andrew Winning/Reuters

Or, put another way by co-author Stephen Wu of Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, those surrounded by unhappy people may not feel so bad for themselves.But Wu urged caution in drawing conclusions, saying: "I don't think that means if you are unhappy you should be around others who are unhappy." Their study ranked Utah as the No. 1 U.S. state for residents' sense of well-being, but it also scored a high No. 9 in suicide rate. By contrast New York State ranked a low 45th in well-being, but an even lower 50th in suicides.

The researchers came up with their rankings from a federal survey of behavioural risk factors and U.S. Census Bureau numbers on suicide rates. Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside, who wasn't involved in the research, agreed that living around people who are, on average, pretty satisfied with their lives, when you are not, can make you feel more miserable.
In an interview by email, she said the findings remind her of an effect researchers have discussed in cases where a city with a reputation for being a good place to live also has a high suicide rate.

High satisfaction, high suicide rates

The idea is, "If you're unhappy there, you conclude, 'something must be really wrong with me,' or 'nothing will make me happy,' so you're more likely to get depressed and take your life," said Lyubomirsky, who researches happiness and well-being. However, she added, other things may also be at play.She suggested there may be other factors that states with high life satisfaction have in common that could be associated with high suicide rates. For example, if they are more likely to be rural, that could mean people also are more isolated. Religious beliefs that vary among states may also have an effect, she said.
John F. Helliwell of the University of British Columbia, who has studied well-being and suicide rates internationally, said suicides tend to peak when days are longer, "not as you might have thought, when days are shortest." Researchers have suggested that when people who are unhappy see others in happy, social situations such as picnics, that may bring their own crisis to a head. The new study, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, looked at the 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C.
It lists the top 10 states for well-being as Utah, Louisiana, Colorado, Minnesota, Wyoming, Hawaii, Arizona, Delaware, Florida and Nevada. Four of those states also are in the top 10 for suicide rates, with Nevada ranked 3rd, Wyoming, 5th; Colorado, 6th; and Utah, 9th. Among the others, Arizona was 11th and Florida, 15th.

The 10 states with the lowest well-being ratings are: Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, New York, Massachusetts, Michigan and Rhode Island. Just one of those states, West Virginia, is among the top 10 for suicides, ranking No. 8. The only other state in the top 20 was Kentucky at 16th. Wu noted that international studies have found that Scandinavian countries also display high satisfaction levels and high suicide rates.But the researchers said that because of variations in culture and suicide-reporting systems, it's hard to make comparisons from one country to another.

To develop their data, Wu and colleagues used information collected by the federal government in the Behavioural Risk-Factor Surveillance System, a monthly survey designed to gather health data and identify emerging problems. One survey question asks people how satisfied they are with their life and the responses to that from people aged 18 to 85 formed the basis for the well-being assessment.

The survey interviews more than 350,000 people each year. The suicide rankings are based on mortality data reported by the Census Bureau in 2008.



Saturday, April 23, 2011

Friday, April 22, 2011

Chimpanzees and Children in Learning tasks

Neuropsin in the Amygdala and Anxiety

Anxiety has been linked to a chemical in the amygdala, which is the part of the brain involved in fear responses. The discovery of a new biochemical pathway in the part of the brain that deals with fear offers hope for better treatment of anxiety-related disorders.The research team, led by Dr Robert Pawlak of the Department of Cell Physiology and Pharmacology at the University of Leicester in the UK, has shown that an enzyme called neuropsin may play a key role in anxious behaviour.

"Neuropsin was known to be important in learning and memory but its role in the amygdala [the brain region involved in fear responses] has never been studied", says Pawlak.  The work is reported in this week's edition of Nature.

Neuropsin exists in the extracellular matrix, which fills the space between nerve cells, and so is ideally positioned to interact with receptors on the nerve membranes.Pawlak and his team compared normal mice with "knock-out" mice which were unable to make neuropsin. Both types of mice were restrained from moving for a while, an experience which put them under stress. The neuropsin levels in the normal mice rose after stress by 50%.
The team went on to demonstrate a cascade of events whereby the raised neuropsin levels eventually led to a 21-fold increase in the activity of a gene which is thought to be important in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety and depression. After being stressed, the mice were tested to see whether they were anxious by placing them in a maze which had darkly-lit and brightly-lit regions. The normal mice had been made anxious by their experience and were reluctant to enter the bright regions of the maze.

By contrast, the knock-out mice appeared to be relaxed, readily entering bright parts of the maze. Their lack of neuropsin seemed to fit with less anxiety.
Pawlak is excited about the findings. "We know that all members of the neuropsin pathway are present in the human brain", he says, "so they may play a similar role in humans". However, Professor Pankaj Sah, an expert in the amygdala from the Queensland Brain Institute, has some reservations.  He points out that knock-out mice are abnormal in many ways, which could give misleading results, and that only one way of measuring anxiety was used. He says more research is needed."It would be great to genotype people who have anxiety disorders such as PTSD and see what RNAs are being expressed, to determine if there is a difference in their neuropsin", says Sah. "Or you could use tissue from brain banks of people with high anxiety and see if their neuropsin levels were high."



Thursday, April 21, 2011

Excess crying, poor eating and sleeping in infants can be predictors of behaviour problems later

Excessive crying as a baby may hint at behavioural problems later in life. Babies who cry excessively and have problems feeding and sleeping have a greater risk of serious behavioural problems later in life, say scientists. One in five babies has symptoms that could lead to conditions such as ADHD, according to research published in Archives of Disease in Childhood.

The review of previous studies looked at nearly 17,000 children. A child-health expert said it would be wrong for parents to be "overly alarmed" by the results. Crying in babies is normal, but some cry "excessively" after the age of three months for reasons other than colic. An international group of researchers looked at this as well as problems eating and sleeping.
“It would be wrong for people to get overly alarmed. I don't think on the basis of this report people should be going to their GPs.” Jane Valente Great Ormond Street Hospital.By comparing data from 22 studies from 1987 to 2006, they found a link between these issues and problems later in life.

Behaviour problems

There was an increased risk of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), anxiety and depression as well as aggressive behaviour.The research showed that a baby with more than one risk factor was even more likely to develop behavioural problems. Professor Dieter Wolke, from the University of Warwick, told the BBC: "It is about a 100% increase in risk, a doubling of risk of behavioural problems with excessive crying, sleeping and eating problems." Jane Valente, a consultant paediatrician at Great Ormond Street Hospital, said: "It would be wrong for people to get overly alarmed. I don't think on the basis of this report people should be going to their GPs. "If a baby is not behaving like other babies it is probably worth discussing with a midwife or health visitor." The study cannot tell if issues as a baby cause behavioural problems later in life: they could be an early symptom of those later problems. Professor Wolke said while there were treatments for problem crying, feeding and sleeping in babies, there was no research assessing their impact later in life.
He added: "If you could prevent behavioural problems with an early intervention, in a public health-sense it could be very important."

Professor Mitch Blair, officer for health promotion at The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said: "It is an important study." He said parents were very good at knowing when something was wrong with their children and that the study "really reinforces the need for attention at an early stage to prevent issues later in childhood".

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

400th post: Hand transplant success story

Hand transplant 'surreal,' U.S. woman says


Emily Fennell, 26, of Northern California had her right hand amputated after it was crushed in a car rollover in June 2006. About 6½ weeks ago, she received a donor hand attached in a 14-hour surgical procedure at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles."It has been surreal to see that I have a hand again, and be able to wiggle my fingers," Fennell said in a hospital statement."My six-year-old daughter has never seen me with a hand," said Fennell, a single mother. "She looked at it, touched it and said it was 'cool.'"
The transplant involves grafting a hand from a deceased donor and connecting the nerves and blood vessels. It was the 13th such case in the United States and the first for the hospital. Dr. Kodi Azari, surgical director of the UCLA hand transplantation program, said Fennell's recovery has gone well both psychologically and physically."She is making the emotional transition from calling it 'the' hand to 'my' hand," Azari said. "From a surgical standpoint, we achieved a good connection of the nerves and blood vessels, and the balance between the palm and back-of-the-hand tendons appears to be pristine."

Fennell is taking medication to keep her body from rejecting the hand and is also receiving intensive occupational therapy to help her brain accept it and learn how to use it.After the amputation, Fennell learned to use her left hand to tie her shoes, write, dress and drive. But she remained unsatisfied with how her myoelectric prosthetic hand functioned. Fennell hoped a hand transplant would help her provide more fully for her daughter, gain independence and advance in her career, the hospital said.

Little has been revealed about the donor except that the hand matched the patient's in terms of blood type, size and colour.The first hand transplant was done in Ecuador in 1964 before the development of modern immunosuppressive drugs. That transplant failed after two weeks and the patient had to have the donor hand amputated.



Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Virus and low sunlight 'raises multiple sclerosis risk'


Low levels of sunlight coupled with glandular fever could increase the risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS), say researchers.There are many suspected risk factors for MS and the disease is known to be more common away from the equator.The study, in Neurology, suggested that low levels of sunlight could affect how the body responds to infection.

The MS Society said the study, based on hospital admissions data in England, added weight to existing evidence.MS affects about 100,000 people in the UK and is more common in the north of England than in the south.There are also high levels of both vitamin D deficiency and MS in Scotland, where the MS Society is considering carrying out separate research on a possible link between the two. Around 10,500 people have MS in the country, the highest prevalence of the condition in the world.
With MS the protective layer around nerves, known as the myelin sheath, becomes damaged. Messages from the brain to the rest of the body are disrupted, resulting in difficulty moving, muscle weakness and blurred vision.

Light plus virus

The researchers at the University of Oxford looked at all hospital admissions in England between 1998 and 2005. "Vitamin D is thought to be a key factor in the development of MS”Dr Doug Brown
MS Society

They found 56,681 MS cases and 14,621 cases of glandular fever, which is caused by the Epstein-Barr virus.The study also used data from Nasa on sunlight intensity.The researchers found that by just analysing sunlight, they could explain 61% of the variation in the number of MS cases across England.
However when they combined the effect of sunlight and glandular fever, 72% of the variation in MS cases could be explained.

Professor George Ebers, from the University of Oxford, said: "It's possible that vitamin D[which is made when the skin is exposed to sunlight] deficiency may lead to an abnormal response to the Epstein-Barr virus."More research should be done on whether increasing UVB exposure or using vitamin D supplements and possible treatments or vaccines for the Epstein-Barr virus could lead to fewer cases of MS."

Dr Doug Brown, head of biomedical research at the MS Society, said: "This work adds weight to existing evidence that MS is caused by a number of factors working in combination. "Vitamin D has been closely studied in recent years and is thought to be a key factor in the development of MS, we look forward to seeing more research dedicated to this important area."Pam Macfarlane, chief executive of the Multiple Sclerosis Trust, said: "Further research is needed, but being able to accurately predict the risk of getting MS and identifying preventative measures would be another step forward."
Studies in the UK have suggested that the MS prevalence rate in England and Wales is between 100 and 140 per 100,000, about 170 in Northern Ireland and as high as 190 in Scotland. Individual studies in Orkney have recorded rates of over 200.It has also been noted that areas of high MS prevalence around the world have been settled by Scottish immigrants, according to the MS Trust.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Cultural Evolution not brain structure drives language Development

By Jason Palmer-Science and technology reporter, BBC News

The study challenges the idea that the "language centres" of our brains are the sole driver of language
A long-standing idea that human languages share universal features that are dictated by human brain structure has been cast into doubt. A study reported in Nature has borrowed methods from evolutionary biology to trace the development of grammar in several language families. The results suggest that features shared across language families evolved independently in each lineage.The authors say cultural evolution, not the brain, drives language development. At the heart of both studies is a method based on what are known as phylogenetic studies.

Lead author Michael Dunn, an evolutionary linguist at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands, said the approach is akin to the study of pea plants by Gregor Mendel, which ultimately led to the idea of heritability of traits. "By looking at variation amongst the descendant plants and knowing how they were related to each other, [Mendel] could work out the mechanisms that must govern that variation," Dr Dunn explained to BBC News. "He inferred the existence of some kind of information transfer just from knowing family trees and observing variation, and that's exactly the same thing we're doing."

Family trees
Modern phylogenetics studies look at variations in animals that are known to be related, and from those can work out when specific structures evolved. For their studies, the team studied the characteristics of word order in four language families: Indo-European, Uto-Aztec, Bantu and Austronesian. They considered whether what we call prepositions occur before or after a noun ("in the boat" versus "the boat in") and how the word order of subject and object work out in either case ("I put the dog in the boat" versus "I the dog put the canoe in"). The method starts by making use of well-established linguistic data on words and grammar within these language families, and building "family trees" of those languages.

"Once we have those trees we look at distribution of these different word order features over the descendant languages, and build evolutionary models for what's most likely to produce the diversity that we observe in the world," Dr Dunn said.The methods use inference in a similar way to Mendel's studies of pea plants The models revealed that while different language structures in the family tree could be seen to evolve along the branches, just how and when they evolved depended on which branch they were on. "We show that each of these language families evolves according to its own set of rules, not according to a universal set of rules," Dr Dunn explained.

"That is inconsistent with the dominant 'universality theories' of grammar; it suggests rather that language is part of not a specialised module distinct from the rest of cognition, but more part of broad human cognitive skills."
The paper asserts instead that "cultural evolution is the primary factor that determines linguistic structure, with the current state of a linguistic system shaping and constraining future states".
However, co-author and evolutionary biologist Russell Gray of the University of Auckland stressed that the team was not pitting biology against culture in a mutually exclusive way. "We're not saying that biology is irrelevant - of course it's not," Professor Gray told BBC News."But the clumsy argument about an innate structure of the human mind imposing these kind of 'universals' that we've seen in cognitive science for such a long time just isn't tenable."

Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist at Harvard University, called the work "an important and welcome study". However, Professor Pinker told BBC News that the finer details of the method need bearing out in order to more fully support their hypothesis that cultural boundaries drive the development of language more than biological limitations do. "The [authors] suggest that the human mind has a tendency to generalise orderings across phrases of different types, which would not occur if the mind generated every phrase type with a unique and isolated rule.

"The tendency may be partial, and it may be elaborated in different ways in differently language families, but it needs an explanation in terms of the working of the mind of language speakers."

Sunday, April 17, 2011

New Brain Tumour treatment approved

Brain Tumor Treatment, On-the-Go
by Jack Loftus —

In today's active, time-constrained world, even tumor patients don't have time for treatment. What to do? Wear this: The NovoTTF-100A. It's portable, cancer zapping headgear and it just got FDA approved.
It's not for every patient, as it only targets GBM (or glioblastoma multiforme), but in testing it displayed a knack for stopping or even reducing tumor growth in the brain. Recent tests apparently had the same effect as chemotherapy—without all the associated nasty side effects of that treatment route.

Patients must wear the headgear all the live day for it to be effective, but come on—goofy headgear or deadly, inoperable brain cancer? Tough choice. [Novacure via Engadget]



Thursday, April 14, 2011

Schizoprenia in the Brain




What schizophrenia looks like on a molecular levelAnnalee Newitz — What you're looking at are neurons grown from a schizophrenic person. An incredible study, published today in Nature, reveals how scientists grew schizophrenic brain cells to understand the inner workings of this still-mysterious neurological disorder.


A team of scientists from research institutes across the US collaborated to conduct this first-of-a-kind experiment. Schizophrenia is known to be an inherited, genetic disease in the majority of cases, and the researchers drew their samples from the skin of four people with clearly inherited schizophrenia. Three were from families where one parent and all their siblings were also schizophrenic, and one had been diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 6. Then they then "reprogrammed" these cells to become stem cells, then neurons, creating small colonies of cells whose genetic profile exactly matches schizophrenic neurons.



Could MRI scans be used to predict the chance of developing Alzheimer's

Brain scans fuel hope of early Alzheimer's detectionBy James Gallagher




Health reporter, BBC News




Brain scans may be able to indicate potential Alzheimer's patients years before symptoms appear, according to the results of a small study.Research published in Neurology showed parts of some patients' brains had shrunk up to a decade before signs of Alzheimer's would otherwise be evident.
Alzheimer's Research UK said there was stong evidence that the disease began to develop in mid-life.
Early diagnosis may one day prove vital in enabling effective treatment.
Sixty-five patients, all of whom started with normal brain function, took part in the study at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Rush University Medical Center in the US.
MRI scans were taken and the thickness of regions of the brain were measured.

Brain Thinning

Twenty per cent of patients with brains of average thickness went on to develop Alzheimer's.
However, no patients with thicker brains developed the disease, while 55% of those with thinner ones also contracted it.


Regions of the brain showing thinning in Alzheimer's disease

Medial temporal lobe

Temporal pole

Superior frontal gyrus

Dr Brad Dickerson, lead author and neuroscientist at the Massachusetts General Hospital, said: "We used what we know about the signature brain changes seen in patients with Alzheimer's dementia, measured those areas in individuals with no symptoms and eventually determined that those who ultimately developed dementia showed subtle shrinking long before they had any symptoms."

Early Diagnosis

In the UK, one in 14 people over the age of 65 has Alzheimer's disease.
Research suggests that it takes several years before the disease produces noticeable symptoms.

It means any form of treatment might need to start in middle age, so early diagnosis would be vital.
Rebecca Wood, chief executive of Alzheimer's Research UK, said: "This adds to growing evidence that the changes associated with Alzheimer's disease begin long before symptoms start to appear.

"However, this is a small study and it needs to be expanded before we can be certain of the method's accuracy in predicting Alzheimer's.The authors acknowledge that further work involving many more patients is needed.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

MIT study sheds light on brain changes in macular degeneration


The brain adapts to find new visual information when a person gets eye disease causing blindness, according to a study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Researchers found that when people lose their sight because of macular degeneration, the affected neurons simply start seeking visual input from other, non-affected parts of the eye.Their findings were published Wednesday in the Journal of Neuroscience.

"This study shows us one way that the brain changes when its inputs change. Neurons seem to 'want' to receive input: when their usual input disappears, they start responding to the next best thing," wrote lead researcher Nancy Kanwisher of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT.It appears the long-term change in visual behaviour is not driving the brain's remapping; rather, it's the brain's relatively passive response to visual deprivation.
Macular degeneration is the most common form of adult blindness. It affects 800,000 people in Canada. Those suffering from it progressively lose vision in the central visual field of their retina, or their fovea. That means the corresponding part of the visual cortex in the brain also loses input."Macular degeneration is a great opportunity to learn more about plasticity in the adult cortex," Kanwisher said in a news release. "If scientists could one day develop technologies to replace the lost light-sensitive cells in the fovea, patients might be able to recover central vision since the neurons there are still alive and well."

Previously, researchers found deprived neurons would begin responding to visual input from another spot on the retina, essentially building a new visual map on the cortex. That information provided evidence of plasticity in the adult cortex. However, there were still questions as to how that happened.

MIT's study sheds light on the underlying neural mechanism.
"Our study shows that the changes we see in neural response in people with MD are probably driven by the lack of input to a population of neurons, not by a change in visual information processing strategy," said Kanwisher.Typically, people suffering from MD will compensate by using an adjacent patch of undamaged retina. They'll roll their eyes upward to look at someone's face instead of focusing straight on, for instance. That undamaged patch becomes their new "preferred retinal locus," or PRL.

The researchers wanted to find out if the cortical change was caused by chronic prior use of the PRL, said another study author, Daniel D. Dilks, a postdoctoral fellow in the Kanwisher lab."Or, do the deprived neurons respond to stimulation at any peripheral location, regardless of prior visual behaviour," he wrote.
The previous studies could not answer this question because they had only tested patients' PRL. This new study tests both the PRL and another peripheral location, using functional magnetic resonance imaging to scan two macular degeneration patients who had no central vision, and consequently had a deprived central visual cortex.

Because patients habitually use the PRL like a new fovea, it could be that the deprived cortex might respond preferentially to this location. But that is not what the researchers found. Instead, the deprived region responded equally to stimuli at both the preferred and nonpreferred locations.



Monday, April 11, 2011

Pick's Disease or Fronto-Temporal Dementia

Fronto-temporal dementia (FTD) is associated with degeneration of the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. After Alzheimer's, it is one of the most common cause of early-onset dementia. Pick's disease - named after Arnold Pick who first described the syndrome in a case report in 1892 - is one variant of FTD. Some studies based on brain pathology samples have suggested that as many as 10% of cases of dementia in the U.S. might be due to Pick's disease. A study by Stevens from the Netherlands reported approximately 5 cases per million.
The symptoms of FTD are behavioural as well as those that have to do with executive functions. Behavioural symptoms include lethargy or apathy. Patients may be withdrawn socially. Occasionally, patients may act as if they have lost their normal inhibitions. Symptoms of loss of executive function include inability to plan or to organize.

Reports suggest the former premier has lost his command of language. While some patients remain quite fluent, others have difficulty recalling words and proper names. Some patients can nevertheless recognize words when spoken to them despite difficulty being able to say those words themsevles.
The diagnosis is made when typical symptoms are present. An MRI of the brain many show atrophy of the frontal and temporal lobes. More recently, positron emission tomography or PET scanning shows decreased metabolism of the frontal and temporal lobes, a feature that is not present in Alzheimer's disease.
While FTD is thought to run in families, the exact proportion of cases associated with abnormal genes and the role of genetics are unknown. Like Alzheimer's disease, FTD has no known cure. Patients require similar supportive care plus medications that treat depression and other related behavioural problems.

The condition can be quite devastating to families in which the patient is young and in the prime of life. The median survival time is 7 years.

Dementia is a devastating condition.

Role of SYN1 gene in autism and epilepsy

World First: Discovery of a Common Genetic Cause of Autism and EpilepsyResearchers from the CHUM Research Centre (CRCHUM) have identified a new gene that predisposes people to both autism and epilepsy.
Led by the neurologist Dr. Patrick Cossette, the research team found a severe mutation of the synapsin gene (SYN1) in all members of a large French-Canadian family suffering from epilepsy, including individuals also suffering from autism. This study also includes an analysis of two cohorts of individuals from Quebec, which made it possible to identify other mutations in the SYN1 gene among 1% and 3.5% of those suffering respectively from autism and epilepsy, while several carriers of the SYN1 mutation displayed symptoms of both disorders. “The results show for the first time the role of the SYN1 gene in autism, in addition to epilepsy, and strengthen the hypothesis that a deregulation of the function of synapse because of this mutation is the cause of both diseases,” notes Cossette, who is also a professor with the Faculty of Medicine at the Université de Montréal.
He adds that “until now, no other genetic study of humans has made this demonstration.”
The different forms of autism are often genetic in origin and nearly a third of people with autism also suffer from epilepsy. The reason for this comorbidity is unknown. The synapsin gene plays are crucial role in the development of the membrane surrounding neurotransmitters, also referred to as synaptic vesicles. These neurotransmitters ensure communication between neurons. Although mutations in other genes involved in the development of synapses (the functional junction between two neurons) have previously been identified, this mechanism has never been proved in epilepsy in humans until the present study.

Notes about this autism and epilepsy research
The results of the present study were published in the latest online edition of Human Molecular Genetics (www.hmg.oxfordjournals.org/search?submit=yes&fulltext=SYN1+loss). They provide the key to a common cause of epilepsy and autism and will make it possible to gain a better understanding of the pathophysiology of these devastating diseases that seriously perturb brain development. They will also contribute to the development of new treatment strategies.

Facts and figures relating to autism and epilepsy in Canada
Invasive development disorders, also called the autism spectrum, include five diagnoses: autism, the most well known; RETT syndrome; childhood disintegrative disorder; Asperger syndrome; and unspecified pervasive developmental disorder. It is estimated that 60 to 70 people (including 10 children) out of every 10,000 people are affected by pervasive development disorders in Canada.
Epilepsy affects around 85 out 10,000 people in Canada. There are several kinds of epileptic seizures and syndromes.

About the study

SYN1 loss-of-function mutations in ASD and partial epilepsy cause impaired synaptic function.

Anna Fassio, Lysanne Patry, Sonia Congia, Franco Onofi, Amélie Piton, Julie Gauthier, Davide Pozzi, Mirko Messa, Enrico Defranci, Manuela Fadda, Anna Corradi, Pietro Baldelli, Line Lapointe, Judith St-Onge, Caroline Meloche, Laurent Mottron, Flavia Valtorta, Dang Khoa Nguyen, Guy A. Rouleau, Fabio Benfenati. Human Molecular Genetics.

Contact: Nathalie Forgue – Communication Advisor – Centre hospitalier de l’Université de MontréalSource: Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal Press Release

Image Source: Neuroscience News



Friday, April 8, 2011

Left brain, right brain: researchers link neurology to political orientation

By Andrew Duffy, Postmedia News

A new British study suggests there are distinct and identifiable anatomical features in the brains of opponents on the left and right of the political spectrum.

OTTAWA — Canada's Liberals and Conservatives may have differences that go well beyond their opinions about what constitutes contempt of Parliament.A new British study suggests there are distinct and identifiable anatomical features in the brains of opponents on the left and right of the political spectrum.

The study, published in the online edition of Current Biology, found that people who identified themselves as liberal tended to have larger anterior cingulate cortexes (ACC), a region of the brain that monitors uncertainty and conflict. Meanwhile, those who identified themselves as conservative had larger amygdalas. Among other things, the almond-shaped amygdala processes emotions related to fear.
Researchers believe the physical differences reflect the nature of voters: that liberals tend to be more comfortable with uncertainty while conservatives are more sensitive to fear.

"Previously, some psychological traits were known to be predictive of an individual's political orientation," said Dr. Ryota Kanai, of the University College London's Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. "Our study now links such personality traits with specific brain structure." Previous work has found that political orientation is associated with how people manage uncertainty and fear.

As part of the British study, 90 young adults reported their political views on a five-point scale from very liberal to very conservative. Then, their brains were scanned to measure the size of two regions: the amygdala and ACC. Researchers discovered "significant associations" between the volume of grey matter in the regions and an individual's political bent. In fact, the research suggests that MRI scans could offer fairly accurate guesses at the political bent of subjects. The British researchers did just that with 28 volunteers in order to test the reliability of their initial findings. Using MRI results, they correctly predicted the political orientation of volunteers more than 70 per cent of the time.

But the researchers concede they don't know whether one's political world view is the result of nature or nurture — whether, for example, conservatives are usually born with large amygdalas, or develop them due to life experiences. "It requires a longitudinal study," the researchers wrote, "to determine whether the changes in brain structure that we observed lead to changes in political behaviour, or whether political attitudes and behaviour instead result in changes of brain structure."

In a written statement, Kanai also cautioned about taking the findings of his study too far.
"It's very unlikely that actual political orientation is directly encoded in these brain regions," he said, warning more work must be done to understand how the regions interact with other parts of the brain.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Thursday, April 7, 2011

New brain cell growth restores function

Regeneration helps repair learning and memory after injury in mice

By Tina Hesman Saey

REGROWTH REPAIRS

Brain injury can stimulate the birth of new neurons in the brain. More dense tree-like neurons were found in mice that had a brain injury (right) than in mice that did not (left). A new study suggests that the new cells may boost recovery after a traumatic injury.Steven KernieNewborn nerve cells may help heal the brain after a traumatic injury.

In a study in mice, blocking the birth of new neurons hindered the mice’s ability to learn and remember a water maze after a brain injury, researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas report in the March 30 Journal of Neuroscience. The finding could help settle a debate about what new nerve cells do for the brain and may eventually change the way brain-injured patients are treated.
Although scientists have known for a decade that adult brains can make new neurons in two parts of the brain, the role of the newborn cells has not been clear. Some scientists thought that, in adults, neurogenesis, as researchers call the process of generating new nerve cells, may be a leftover from building a new brain during development and has no affect on the adult brain at all. Others have evidence that the new wiring that hooks up new brain cells sometimes gets tangled and may lead to seizures after a brain injury or in epilepsy. Many researchers have suspected that making new cells is good for the brain, but data to definitely settle the claim has been lacking.

The new study suggests that newborn neurons made in the hippocampus — an important learning and memory center in the brain — are beneficial, at least in aiding recovery after traumatic brain injuries. “It’s clear they are doing something, and that that something aids recovery,” says Jack Parent, a neurologist and neuroscientist at the University of Michigan Medical Center.
To discover what role, if any, neurogenesis plays after a brain injury, the Texas team genetically labeled newborn cells in the hippocampi of mice. The researchers found that traumatic brain injury stimulates birth of more brain cells than usual. Using another genetic technique, the researchers blocked neurogenesis at the time of injury (to the brain’s cortex) in some mice. Mice that couldn’t make new brain cells didn’t recover the ability to learn a water maze after brain injury as effectively as brain-injured mice that could generate new neurons. The result indicates that newborn neurons are needed for learning tasks that involve the hippocampus, such as learning to find a submerged platform in a water maze. Parent says its still an open question whether the new cells help directly with learning and memory or indirectly by reducing anxiety, which can also affect performance in water-maze task.

But new cell growth has no role in making fear or motor memories, which don’t require the hippocampus. Mice in which new neuron production was blocked after brain injury were able to learn that a sound preceded a mild foot shock and how to cling to a rotating bar about as well as brain-injured mice with neurogenesis.

“This suggests that if you get in the way of neurogenesis in a big way, it’s not good,” says Patrick Kochanek, an intensive care physician and brain injury expert at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The worry for doctors now is whether some standard treatments for brain injury, such as sedation, might slow down neurogenesis and hinder recovery, he says. The new work might also suggest that using techniques that safely stimulate even more neurogenesis could make recovery stronger.

Parent cautions against trying to make too many new neurons, however. His research suggests that some newborn brain cells wire into the wrong places and can lead to seizures. So the trick would be in controlling the new cells once they are born. “You need more neurons, but you need them in the right place,” he says.

Learning whether more neurogenesis means more recovery after a brain injury and discovering which molecules are responsible for the healing are next on the Texas team’s agenda, says study coauthor Steven Kernie, a developmental neurobiologist at UT Southwestern.



Scientists make eye's retina from stem cells

By Michelle Roberts-Health reporter, BBC News

A part of the eye that is essential for vision has been created in the laboratory from animal stem cells, offering hope to the blind and partially sighted.One day it might be possible to make an eye in a dish, Nature journal reports.
The Japanese team used mouse stem cells - immature cells that have the ability to turn into many types of body tissue. With the right mix of nutrients, the cells changed and began to grow to make a synthetic retina.
Ultimately, scientists hope they can use this approach to make endless supplies of retinal cells or indeed whole retinas that can be transplanted into patients with visual impairment.  Eventually, it may even be possible to create a whole eye.
A US biotech company has already been granted a license to begin human trials of a stem cell treatment for blindness.

'Landmark discovery'

The retina is the name given to a diverse group of cells that line the inside of the back of eye. Rays of light enter the eye and are focused onto the retina which produces a picture that is then is sent along the optic nerve for the brain to interpret. "Generation of a synthetic retina from embryonic stem cells is a landmark discovery that will help enormously our understanding of blinding eye disease” Professor James Bainbridge of Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

The eye and the brain together produce the images that we see. Retinal diseases can cause severe vision loss or blindness if left untreated. Retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) are the most common causes of blindness in old age, and involve the gradual and normally irreversible destruction of retinal cells.

In the Japanese study, the cultured stem cells spontaneously organised themselves into a complex structure that resembled the developing embryonic eye. The three-dimensional, layered structure was reminiscent of the optic cup, a two-walled pouch-like structure, which ultimately develops into the inner and outer layers of the retina.
The scientists said they were surprised at how well the cells organised themselves with little intervention from them.They said: "Self-formation of fully stratified 3D neural retina tissues heralds the next generation of generative medicine in retinal degeneration therapeutics, and opens up new avenues for the transplantation of artificial retinal tissue sheets, rather than simple cell grafting."

Professor James Bainbridge of Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said: "Generation of a synthetic retina from embryonic stem cells is a landmark discovery that will help enormously our understanding of blinding eye disease.
"It is particularly exciting that this could also provide a source of cells for transplantation." Barbara McLaughlan of the RNIB charity said: "This piece of research contributes to the ongoing efforts to harness stem cell research to benefit patients with a number of eye diseases.

"We welcome these efforts particularly where they move from early laboratory research in mice to trials in humans that are an essential part of developing safe and effective treatments."

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Cortisol linked with forgetfulness as we age

Scientists have shed new light on how older people may lose their memory with a development that could aid research into treatments for age-related memory disorders. Many believe that stress is bad for our brains especially as we get older. Now researchers have shown how two receptors in older brains react to a stress hormone called cortisol, which has been linked to increasing forgetfulness as we age. The study, by the University of Edinburgh, found that one receptor was activated by low levels of cortisol, which helped memory.

However, once levels of this stress hormone were too high they spilled over onto a second receptor activating brain processes that contribute to memory impairment. The study, published in the leading Journal of Neuroscience, found that high levels of the stress hormone in aged mice made them less able to remember how to navigate a maze.

The memory recall problem was reversed when the receptor linked to poor memory was blocked.
The research helps explain why too much stress over a prolonged period interferes with the normal processes in storing everyday memories despite the fact that a little bit of stress can help us better remember emotional memories.
Dr Joyce Yau, at the University's Centre for Cardiovascular Science, who led the study, said: "While we know that stress hormones affect memory, this research explains how the receptors they engage with can switch good memory to poorly-functioning memory in old age. We now know that lowering the levels of these stress hormones will prevent them from activating a receptor in the brain that is bad for memory. Understanding the mechanisms in the brain, which affect memory as we age, will help us to find ways to combat conditions linked to memory loss."

The study was funded by the Medical Research Council.
Professor Chris Kennard, Chairman of the MRC's Neuroscience and Mental Health Board said: "This research highlights some interesting, original concepts relating to why memory loss occurs in old age. With people living ever longer, the MRC is really focussing on research which allows elderly people not just to survive, but also to stay healthy."
The researchers are currently investigating a new chemical compound which blocks an enzyme - 11beta-HSD1 - that is involved in producing stress hormones within cells, supported by a Seeding Drug Discovery Award from the Wellcome Trust. They hope this could be used to develop a drug treatment to slow the normal decline in memory associated with ageing or even improve memory in the already very old.

Source: University of Edinburgh -Medical Research Council Wellcome Trust



Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Memory and MRI stud of recall.

Researchers at UC Irvine have found that how much detail one remembers of an event depends on whether a certain portion of the brain is activated to “package” the memory.
The research may help to explain why sometimes people only recall parts of an experience such as a car accident, and yet vividly recall all of the details of a similar experience.

In experiments using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the scientists were able to view what happened in the brains of subjects when they experienced an event made up of multiple contextual details. They found that participants who later remembered all aspects of the experience, including the details, used a particular part of the brain that bound the different details together as a package at the time the event occurred. When this brain region wasn’t activated to bind together the details, only some aspects of an event were recalled. The findings appear in the current issue of Neuron.



“This study provides a neurological basis for what psychologists have been telling us for years,” said Michael Rugg, director of UCI’s Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory and senior author of the paper. “You can’t get out of memory what you didn’t put into it. It is not possible to remember things later if you didn’t pay attention to them in the first place.”



The scientists presented 23 research subjects with a list of words while they underwent an fMRI scan. The words were in different colors and would appear in one of four quadrants on a screen. The subjects had to decide whether the words represented an animate or inanimate object. Later, the participants were presented the words again, interspersed with words they had not seen before, and asked if they remembered seeing those words before. They were also asked if they remembered in what color the word had originally been and in which of the four quadrants it had originally appeared.



If the participant could later remember the color of the word, a particular area of the brain associated with color processing was especially active during learning. If the subject later remembered the location of the word, activity was seen in an area associated with spatial processing. But if the subject remembered the word, the color and the location, then another critical brain region became involved. The researchers observed enhanced activity in the intra-parietal sulcus, a part of the parietal cortex. It appears that this region is responsible for binding together all the features of a particular memory so that contextual details, as well as more central aspects of the event such as the identity of the word, can later be recalled.



“We know that if the intra-parietal sulcus is damaged, then someone cannot attend to multiple aspects of the same object, such as its size and color,” said Melina Uncapher, a graduate student researcher and lead author of the study. “This study provides empirical evidence for how critical this region is for bringing the constituents of a memory together in the brain.



“Memory is more than a sum of its parts. A complete memory of an event requires that the features of the event be brought together and processed by the brain as a common perceptual representation, before being stored.”



Source: University of California, Irvine





Research shows adult brains capable of rapid new growth



April 5, 2011 by Bob Yirka

(PhysOrg.com) -- In a paper published in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, Veronica Kwok, Li-Hai Tan, and their colleagues at the University of Hong Kong, conclude that the adult human brain is capable of new rapid growth when exposed to stimuli similar to what babies experience as they are learning from their environment.

The researches subjected 19 adult volunteers to a study where colored cards (2 shades of green and 2 blue) were shown to them; each with nonsensical names. The participants were then asked to accept the new words as actual descriptors for the new colors and to memorize them so that they could reply with the correct color name at a later date and to match them when asked. After the conditioning was carried out (over three days with five sessions; total time less than two hours) the subjects all underwent MRI scans, where it was revealed that new grey matter had formed in the left hemisphere of their brains. It’s not yet clear if the new matter was comprised of new neuron formation or if they were simply dendrites (branches).

Previous research has shown that new brain growth is possible over periods of time, but until now, it was thought that the human brain was incapable of adding grey matter over such a short period of time.
It appears the key lies in the name differentiation, and how the subjects perceived the colors based on the names they were given; something much deeper than say, asking subjects to simply memorize a list of names. It was a change in perception. This is backed up by the fact that the areas of the brain that grew new matter were parts of the brain known to process color and vision, but more importantly, perception.
The researchers were surprised by the findings as they’d set out to try to find answers to the long standing question of whether people come to perceive the world in certain ways depending on which language they happen to speak. Though they may not have solved that particular riddle, the results of their research might one day lead to new ways to help people with learning disabilities, or perhaps, even those with brain damage.


More information: Learning new color names produces rapid increase in gray matter in the intact adult human cortex, PNAS, Published online before print April 4, 2011, doi:10.1073/pnas.1103217108





Autistic brains "organised differently" say scientists

by Jane Hughes Health correspondent, BBC News

People with autism use their brains differently from other people, which may explain why some have extraordinary abilities to remember and draw objects in detail, according to new research. University of Montreal scientists say in autistic people, the brain areas that deal with visual information are highly developed.

Other brain areas are less active.

The National Autistic Society says the findings significantly increase understanding of the condition.
The research, published in the journal Human Brain Mapping, pulls together 15 years of data on the way the autistic brain works.

Better at visual tasks

It suggests that the brains of autistic people are organised differently from those of other people; the area at the back of the brain, which processes visual information, is more highly developed. That leaves less brain capacity in areas which deal with decision-making and planning.Areas where autistic brains are more active That may be why people with autism can be better than others at carrying out some types of visual tasks. For example, some are able to draw highly accurate and detailed images from memory.
However, they can find it difficult to interpret things like facial expressions.
The condition varies in severity, with some people functioning well, but others completely unable to take part in normal society.The researchers believe their findings may lead towards new ways of helping people to live with the condition.

"For example, this may show a means to help people to literacy in a much more natural way than the usual methods of helping autistic people," said Dr Laurent Mottron from the University of Montreal.
"The natural tendency is to think that autism is a form of disorganisation. Here, what we see is that it is a reorganisation of the brain," he said.

Understanding autism

Autism experts regard the research findings as significant. "This review highlights that autism should not only be seen as a condition with behavioural difficulties, but should also be associated with particular skill," said Dr Christine Ecker from the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College, London."It offers us unique insights into the way people with autism perceive their environment and helps us to understand some of their behaviour."She said it added to the understanding of autism. "Knowing the strengths and difficulties of someone with autism may help to better understand their needs and help them maximize their potential."

Carol Povey of the National Autistic Society said: "This study is interesting as it begins to demonstrate why people with autism often show a strong single channel for focus and attention. "Some adults with autism develop their own ways of coping with this experience, some seek out calm and quiet places, whilst others find creative outlets, like art, can help them both process the information as well as give others an insight into how they see the world. "The more insight we have into the way autism affects sensory processing, the more people with autism, their families and professionals can develop strategies to make daily life easier."

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Breast feeding can boost IQ

By Stephen Adams


The most comprehensive British study of breastfeeding to date shows that it continues to have an effect on a child's mental ability right through secondary school.

The study of more than 10,000 children from the Bristol area found that those breastfed exclusively for at least the first four weeks of life consistently outperformed those put on the bottle from birth.
Researchers at Oxford University and the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) in Essex made their conclusions after "pairing up" children who in all major respects, such as family circumstances and maternal IQ, were identical.
The only difference was whether or not they were breastfed. They then compared each of these "twin" pairs to gauge the difference made by breastfeeding. Maria Iacovou, a research fellow at the ISER, said breastfed babies had IQs that were on average between three and five points higher.

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The results are from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, which follows the lives of more than 14,000 mothers who gave birth in 1991 and 1992, and their children.
Ms Iacovou said the data show an effect at aged five, seven, 11 and 14.
"We wouldn't have been surprised if the effect faded with time, but it didn't," she said.
She added that other studies showed there was an effect in the pre-school years. They excluded such information from this study, as in the Avon study pre-school ability was assessed by the mothers, who she thought were "probably a little biased".

She said there were two schools of thought on how breastfeeding had an effect: that long-chain fatty acids in breast milk helped the brain develop; and that the act of breastfeeding improved the mother-child bond.

Numerous studies have shown that breastfeeding improves a young child's health. For example, breastfed infants tend to get fewer infections. However, relatively few have looked at its impact on intelligence.
Ms Iacovou said: "This is more evidence that breastfeeding is good for your baby."
However, while she said that increasing numbers of studies were pointing to the conclusion that it aided intelligence, the theory remains controversial. In 2006 a study published in the British Medical Journal showed it had no effect.
Britain has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world. At a week old, only a third (35 per cent) are exclusively breast fed, while the proportion drops to a fifth at six weeks and just seven per cent at four months.

The Department of Health recommends that babies are exclusively breastfed until six months, although many paediatricians say babies should be weaned earlier if they show an interest in solids.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Conduct Disorder in Teenage Boys Visible in MRI study

The brains of some aggressive and antisocial teenage boys look different than those of normal teenagers, British researchers have found. Conduct disorder is psychiatric condition characterized by higher than normal levels of aggressive and antisocial behaviour. It can develop in childhood or in adolescence and affects around five out of every 100 teenagers in the UK, researchers say.People affected by conduct disorder run a greater risk of further mental and physical health problems in adulthood.

The new brain scan findings published in Friday's online issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry suggest adolescents who develop conduct disorder have differences in their brain and are not merely imitating misbehaving peers."Changes in grey matter volume in these areas of the brain could explain why teenagers with conduct disorder have difficulties in recognizing emotions in others. Further studies are now needed to investigate whether these changes in brain structure are a cause or a consequence of the disorder," said Prof. Ian Goodyer of the University of Cambridge.

For the study, scientists used MRIs to look at the brains of 65 teenage boys with conduct disorder and 27 healthy teenage boys.The volume of the insula was smallest in those with the most severe behaviour problems. University of Cambridge.They found that two regions of the brain, the amygdala and the insula, both regions that govern emotion perception and empathy, were much smaller in the brains of the teenagers with conduct disorder.The changes were found in both those the childhood and adolescent forms of the disorder.
The volume of the insula was smallest in those with the most severe behaviour problems.
Goodyer and his co-authors called the paper the largest structural neuroimaging to date to investigate antisocial behaviour in this way.They cautioned that while the results support developmental theories that link amygdala dysfunction with antisocial behaviour, more research is needed to tell whether the defects are a cause or consequence of conduct disorder.



Friday, April 1, 2011

Migranes in children linked to hole in heart

Children who see flashing lights during a migraine have twice the normal likelihood of having a hole-in-the-heart, a study suggests.US doctors examined 109 children over six who were migraine sufferers. About half of those with a type of migraine accompanied by a visual disturbance called an aura had the heart defect, the Journal of Pediatrics reports.The British Heart Foundation called for further research into the link.

Amy Thompson, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: "There could be a number of explanations for this link so further research needs to be carried out before we draw any firm conclusions.
"Once we understand the relationship in more detail it could signal an improvement in patient care."
A number of medical studies have found a link in adults between a hole-in-the-heart - known technically as a patent foramen ovale (PFO) - and migraine with aura.

Patent foramen ovale

A flap or valve-like opening in the wall between the two upper (atrial) chambers of the heart, It is frequently found before birth, but seals shut in about 80% of people.When pressure is created inside the chest - for instance by coughing - the flap can open, allowing blood to flow in either direction. This can allow blood to bypass the filtering system of the lungs. If  debris is present in the blood, such as small blood clots, it can pass through the left atrium and lodge in the brain, causing a stroke.This has lead to attempts to treat migraine by surgery to close the hole, when other migraine therapies have failed.

Dr Rachel McCandless and colleagues of the University of Utah used a scanning technique known as an echocardiogram to look for the heart defect.Of the children who had migraines with aura, 50% also had the defect. This is nearly double the rate seen in the general population.
She said she hoped "our study will help guide future research about this difficult problem".Around one in 10 people have aura with their migraines. Common aura symptoms include visual disturbances such as seeing flashing or flickering lights, numbness, tingling sensations and slurred speech.