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Todays edition deals with psychology and neuroscience

The text following each item is quoted material, except for editorial comments, which are in color.

Lobes of Steel

Scientists have suspected for decades that exercise, particularly regular aerobic exercise, can affect the brain. But they could only speculate as to how. Now an expanding body of research shows that exercise can improve the performance of the brain by boosting memory and cognitive processing speed. Exercise can, in fact, create a stronger, faster brain.

Researchers: New understanding of autism is near

While many parents of autistic children - Murdock included - suspect thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative used in routine childhood vaccines as the disorders cause, most scientists suspect it lurks in the human genome, etched unmistakably in the DNA. ...

As Gould and Murdock worry about their sons, molecular geneticist Michael Wigler, a few miles away at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, believes he and his colleagues are on the cusp of understanding why autism occurs and how some families can be affected more than once. Wigler and his team have discovered how certain spontaneous genetic mutations are relatively common and how they can be passed on by very healthy parents to their offspring.

Its unfortunate, as the article points out, that parents of autistic children misconstrue the idea that autism is a consequence of genetic errors to be "blaming the parents". Perhaps this is partly a holdover from earlier hypotheses, which now seem very mistaken, that autism is a consequence of bad parenting. An example of this idea, sometimes called the "refigerator mother" theory of autism, was promulgated by the once-influential but now mostly discredited Freudian psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim. As some people who have had him as a teacher can testify, Bruno had serious psychological issues of his own.

For a press release that describes Wiglers research, see here. Another article on the research: here. Additional but different research on neurological aspects of autism: here.

This is your brain on love

All animals mate: The most primitive system in the brain, one that even reptiles have, knows it needs to reproduce. Turtles do it but then lay their eggs in the sand and head back to sea, never seeing their mate again.

Human brains are considerably more complicated, with additional neural systems that seek romance, others that want comfort and companionship, and others that are just out for a roll in the hay.

"Love makes the world go round" has served as an epigram to inspire a number of popular songs over the years. A more cynical point of view would suggest that its the mating instinct that makes the world go round. Or even more crudely, its sex that makes the world go round. Whatever. In any case, in humans this impulse manifests itself within their brains in a variety of elaborate and complicated ways.

Study Finds Men Go for Good Looks

Science is confirming what most women know: When given the choice for a mate, men go for good looks.

And guys wont be surprised to learn that women are much choosier about partners than they are.

"Just because people say theyre looking for a particular set of characteristics in a mate, someone like themselves, doesnt mean that is what theyll end up choosing," Peter M. Todd, of the cognitive science program at Indiana University, Bloomington, said in a telephone interview.

Researchers led by Todd report in Tuesdays edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that their study found humans were similar to most other mammals, "following Darwins principle of choosy females and competitive males, even if humans say something different."

If these findings arent obvious to you, perhaps youre still a little wet behind the ears... More on this research: here, here, here.

The Whys of Mating: 237 Reasons and Counting

Perhaps you thought that the motivations for sex were pretty obvious. Or maybe you never really wanted to know what was going on inside other people’s minds, in which case you should stop reading immediately.

For now, thanks to psychologists at the University of Texas at Austin, we can at last count the whys. After asking nearly 2,000 people why they’d had sex, the researchers have assembled and categorized a total of 237 reasons — everything from “I wanted to feel closer to God” to “I was drunk.” They even found a few people who claimed to have been motivated by the desire to have a child.

This is so quintessentially human – the need for novelty and variety is so great that humans need to think of so many rationalizations for what essentially boils down to: reproduction. More on this research: here, here.

Who’s Minding the Mind?

In a recent experiment, psychologists at Yale altered people’s judgments of a stranger by handing them a cup of coffee.

The study participants, college students, had no idea that their social instincts were being deliberately manipulated. On the way to the laboratory, they had bumped into a laboratory assistant, who was holding textbooks, a clipboard, papers and a cup of hot or iced coffee — and asked for a hand with the cup.

That was all it took: The students who held a cup of iced coffee rated a hypothetical person they later read about as being much colder, less social and more selfish than did their fellow students, who had momentarily held a cup of hot java. ...

Psychologists say that “priming” people in this way is not some form of hypnotism, or even subliminal seduction; rather, it’s a demonstration of how everyday sights, smells and sounds can selectively activate goals or motives that people already have.

Gee, you dont suppose, do you, that this sort of mechanism is at work when somebody notices a person of the opposite sex wearing clothing that has connotations of, say, power, affluence, or allure – and decides that it might be advantageous to become better acquainted with that person... and can think of 237 reasons for that....

But aside from that, this idea of "priming" also reminds me of the following:

A New Study Suggests A Relationship Between Fear Of Death And Political Preferences

This research is based on the idea that reminders of death increase the need for psychological security and therefore the appeal of leaders who emphasize the greatness of the nation and a heroic victory over evil. ...

For their current research, the scientists asked students to think about their own death or a control topic and then read campaign statements of three hypothetical political candidates, each with a different leadership style: "charismatic" (i.e. those emphasizing greatness of the nation and a heroic victory over evil, as described above), task-oriented or relationship-oriented. Following a reminder of death, there was almost an 800 percent increase in votes for the charismatic leader, but no increase for the two other candidates.

This research came out in 2004. But it seems appropriate to remember any time one observes would-be "leaders" who seem to talk a lot about "9/11" or "War on Terror" or "Al Qaeda". Theres a very recent and prescient article on this connection here.

Sleights of Mind

In his opening address, Michael Gazzaniga, the president of the consciousness association, had described another form of prestidigitation — a virtual reality experiment in which he had put on a pair of electronic goggles that projected the illusion of a deep hole opening in what he knew to be a solid concrete floor. Jolted by the adrenaline rush, his heart beat faster and his muscles tensed, a reminder that even without goggles the brain cobbles together a world from whatever it can.

Heres a delightful article on many other ways that our brains/minds can play tricks on us, by the versatile writer George Johnson, whom I recently had the pleasure of meeting. It shows, once again, how easily we can be misled by others who are motivated to do so (including, sometimes, our unconscious selves).

Ironically, and very sadly, the parrot mentioned in the article, named Alex, has just died. Obituaries: here, here, here, here, here, here.

Out-of-body experiences are all in the mind

By deliberately scrambling a persons visual and tactile senses, it is now possible to give them an "out-of-body" experience.

Two procedures – which are the first to imitate an out-of-body experience artificially – use cameras to fool people into thinking they are standing or sitting somewhere else in a room. They provide the strongest proof yet that people only imagine floating out of their bodies during surgery or near-death experiences.

"The brain can trick itself, and when it is trying to interpret sensory information, the image it produces doesnt have to be a real representation," says Henrik Ehrsson, of the Institute of Neurology, University College London, UK, who designed the first experiment.

Accidental or deliberate deceptions of the mind, like this one (perpetrated by oneself or others) – besides simply chemical influences such as alcohol or other drugs – show how convincingly the mind can be fooled given the right conditions. Such findings seem able to account for experiences that people describe as "religious" or "spirtual" or "numinous" or the like.

Other reports on this research: here, here, here, here, here, here, here.

The text following each item is quoted material, except for editorial comments, which are in color.

BubR1 Protein: A Key Regulator of Aging

Hoping to find a way to help people maintain their independence and quality of life as they grow older, Jan van Deursen, Ph.D., and a team of collaborators are investigating the relationship between common aging-associated diseases and the protein BubR1. He became interested in aging-related research after observing that mice deficient in the protein BubR1 age faster than normal mice. They say BubR1 deficient mice may hold the key to preventing or delaying disorders such as cataracts, muscle weakness and cardiovascular disease.

Aging and the Growth Hormone Crash: What Comes First?

"If pituitary hormones were released like water from a faucet into a bathtub, thered be a constant slow filling of the tub in proportion to its size and whether or not the drain was open — you could solve that with high school physics," explains Dr. Veldhuis. "One of the complexities is that the pituitary squirts out a pulse of hormones at random times."

The pituitary gland, a pea-sized structure located at the base of the brain, regulates many key functions in the body. It secretes seven hormones in response to commands from the hypothalamus of the brain. Dr Veldhuis is interested in observing the pituitary response for its influence on aging. He is most interested in its secretion of the growth hormone (GH), which stimulates protein synthesis and cell division in cartilage and bone tissue. GH has a tendency to remove intra-abdominal fat, which is associated with diabetes and heart disease (metabolic syndrome).

Hormone dilemma, 5 years on

Five years ago this month, a landmark study dashed the belief that hormone treatment is the key to keeping women of a certain age sexy, healthy and young.

On the contrary, maintaining estrogen and progestin at abnormally high levels after menopause was shown to be risky for their hearts, brains, breasts and blood vessels.

The government study abruptly transformed the use of hormone therapy - and, in the ensuing years, has undermined the idea that women who dont get long-term treatment are doomed to decrepitude. ...

The landmark research remains bitterly controversial, its findings incredibly complex. In recent months, reanalyses of the data have found that while hormones raise heart risks for women long past menopause, they pose no such danger - and may have cardiac benefits - for recently menopausal women.

Critics of the study - known as the Womens Health Initiative - have argued for five years that it overstated the heart risks for younger women.

While the science is still evolving, hormones have been firmly reestablished in a limited role: to relieve the passing discomforts of dwindling estrogen.

And yet the risk of breast cancer from estrogen therapy has been reaffirmed in recent studies – under certain circumstances. But uncertainties still remain. See here, here, and here.

Can Fat Be Fit?

Two years ago Katherine M. Flegal, a re­search­er at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, did a new statistical analysis of national survey data on obesity and came to a startling conclusion: mildly overweight adults had a lower risk of dying than those at so-called healthy weights. ...

Stampfer cites the Flegal study as a prime example of the errors the critics make. The reason being overweight seemed to reduce mortality is because Flegal used the wrong comparison group, he says. The lean group in her study included smokers and people with chronic illnesses—both of whom have increased mortality risks, but not because they are slim. “When you get sick, you lose weight, and you die,” Stampfer says. Compared with those who are smokers or chronically ill, people who are overweight come out looking better than they should.

Eating Made Simple

Studies focusing on one nutrient in isolation have worked splendidly to explain symptoms caused by deficiencies of vitamins or minerals. But this approach is less useful for chronic conditions such as coronary heart disease and diabetes that are caused by the interaction of dietary, genetic, behavioral and social factors. If nutrition science seems puzzling, it is because researchers typically examine single nutrients detached from food itself, foods separate from diets, and risk factors apart from other behaviors. This kind of research is “reductive” in that it attributes health effects to the consumption of one nutrient or food when it is the overall dietary pattern that really counts most.

Cutting Cholesterol, an Uphill Battle

About 85 percent of the cholesterol in your blood is made in your body. The remaining 15 percent comes from food. But by reducing dietary sources of saturated fats and cholesterol and increasing consumption of cholesterol-fighting foods and drink, you can usually lower the amount of harmful cholesterol in your blood. My college roommate, for example, recently adopted a mostly vegetarian-and-fish diet, minus cheese but with occasional meat and chicken, and lowered her total cholesterol from 240 to 160 milligrams.

Deadly Inheritance, Desperate Trade-Off

Mrs. Platt is part of a study aimed at preventing pancreatic cancer in people who are at high risk for it, by finding precancerous growths and removing all or part of the pancreas to get rid of them. So far, about 20 people have had the preventive surgery at Johns Hopkins, and a small number of others have undergone it at other centers.

In essence, these patients are trading the risk of cancer for the reality of diabetes, and their willingness to do it is a measure of the fear and desperation that pancreatic cancer provokes.

“With pancreatic cancer you don’t have much opportunity to save lives, and we are, with this approach,” said Dr. Canto, the director of endoscopy at Johns Hopkins.

Electric fields have potential as a cancer treatment

Yoram Palti, of the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, and his colleagues have demonstrated another way to disrupt cell division: alternating electric fields with intensities of just 1–2 V/cm. The fields they use, with frequencies in the hundreds of kilohertz, were previously thought to do nothing significant to living cells other than heating them. But Palti and colleagues have conducted a small clinical trial showing that the fields have an effect in slowing the growth of tumors.

Science begins at home

Chemotherapy drugs, like most medicines, reach cells by slipping through narrow spaces in the walls of blood vessels that crisscross the body.

But all blood vessels are not alike.

The abnormal, leaky vessels that supply cancer cells have openings up to 100 times larger than those found in healthy vessels -- its like comparing a soccer ball with a Goodyear blimp.

In a way, this biological quirk was the reverse of the problem he faced in seeking a molecular petroleum sieve.

Instead of creating a mesh, he wanted to bulk medicines up so their molecules wouldnt pass through the wall of normal blood vessels. At the same time, they needed to remain small enough to fit through pores of vessels feeding cancerous cells.

One anecdotal example of the difficulties of developing new and better drug therapies.

Mysteries of autoimmune diseases unravel

Scientists say immune disorders, which range from common diseases such as juvenile diabetes or lupus to some so unusual that many doctors have never heard of them, are among the most mysterious of ailments, genetically complex and so diverse that estimating their true prevalence is a guessing game. But with major advances in genetics and exponential growth of knowledge about the immune system, scientists say important discoveries are tantalizingly within reach. ...

Immune system disorders often cluster in families and within an individual, says Virginia Ladd, president of the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association. "Once you have one, you have others. Some patients say if you live long enough, you can collect them."

Visualizing the Molecules that Cause Infectious Disease: Seeing with Supercomputers

CAMDL specializes in developing computer simulated models aimed at the discovery of new treatments for infectious diseases and cancer. It is one of few labs conducting advanced research in computational, medicinal, synthetic and combinatorial chemistry under one roof.

The laboratory houses supercomputing hardware and software used to process highly complex biological data, and develop comprehensive databases of three-dimensional molecules. Dr. Pang has adapted his imaging concepts from the small computer screen to a large wall screen where visitors are drawn into a three-dimensional, sub-microscopic world. Researchers can examine and study, in simulation, microsecond-scale proportions of proteins and enzymes associated with malaria, avian flu and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). This ability has led to significant discoveries in the lab that Dr. Pang says will impact the prevalence and spread of infectious diseases.

Small-Scale Solutions

Chemists first invented lab-on-a-chip devices to analyze gases in the 1970s, but the effort to make practical microfluidics tools for biological studies has gained traction only in the past decade. One major advance, led by George Whitesides at Harvard University in the late 1990s, was to fabricate the chips from cheap, flexible rubber rather than the expensive, stiff silicon used to manufacture computer chips. In a method dubbed "soft" lithography, Whitesides and his colleagues started with the same photographic processes that computer-chip companies use to cast an integrated-circuit blueprint in a single wafer of silicon, but they poured rubber into the chip-making molds instead.

Vaccines and Their Promise Are Roaring Back

By the mid-1990s, however, innovation in vaccines had virtually come to a halt. Only a handful of companies even tried to develop new ones, compared with 25 in 1955.

But in a stunning reversal, innovators today are chasing dozens of vaccines, stimulated by some recent high-profile successes. ...

The allure of the silver bullet — of wiping out an entire class of related diseases with a single injection — remains a powerful symbol of technological advance.

Tags: aging, cancer, hormones, endocrine system, cholesterol, autoimmune disease, health, medicine

Interesting reading and news items.

These items are also bookmarked at my Diigo account.

Crashing the size barrier

Over the past 50 years, the most common method of increasing the energy of a particle accelerator has been to increase its size. Yet that tactic is reaching a breaking point. While even higher energies are needed to answer many of sciences most pressing questions—such as the origin of mass and the identity of dark matter—simply scaling up the current technology is becoming prohibitively expensive. Scientists need less costly, more efficient means of accelerating particles to ever-greater energies. [Symmetry, 10/1/09]

Are Black Holes the Architects of the Universe?

Black holes are finally winning some respect. After long regarding them as agents of destruction or dismissing them as mere by-products of galaxies and stars, scientists are recalibrating their thinking. Now it seems that black holes debuted in a constructive role and appeared unexpectedly soon after the Big Bang. “Several years ago, nobody imagined that there were such monsters in the early universe,” says Penn State astrophysicist Yuexing Li. “Now we see that black holes were essential in creating the universe’s modern structure.” [Discover, 1/4/10]

Genome advances promise personalized medical treatment

Six years after scientists finished decoding the human genome -- the genetic instruction book for life -- theyre starting to take their new knowledge from the research laboratory to the doctors office and the patients bedside. ... Researchers are seeking ways to tailor treatments to individuals -- they call it "personalized medicine" -- in order to improve patient outcomes and to lower costs in the overburdened U.S. health care system. [Physorg.com, 11/18/09]

Hunting for Planets in the Dark

In Europe, the Euclid mission is a proposed space telescope for characterizing dark energy, but some believe that it might be more attractive to funding agencies if it included an exoplanet survey. [Physorg.com, 11/19/09]

Dark Energy Search Could Aid Planet Hunters

The search for dark energy might help in the search for life in the universe. Thats because planet hunting through a technique called microlensing requires a similar sort of instrument as a dark energy mission. [Space.com, 11/19/09]

Recipes for planet formation

Observations of extrasolar planets are shaping our ideas about how planetary systems form and evolve. Michael R Meyer describes whats cooking elsewhere in our galaxy – and beyond. [Physicsworld.com, 11/2/09]

The Americanization of Mental Illness

We have for many years been busily engaged in a grand project of Americanizing the world’s understanding of mental health and illness. We may indeed be far along in homogenizing the way the world goes mad. This unnerving possibility springs from recent research by a loose group of anthropologists and cross-cultural psychiatrists. [New York Times, 1/8/10]

What Life Leaves Behind

The search for life beyond our pale blue dot is fraught with dashed hopes. Will the chemical and mineral fingerprints of Earthly organisms apply on other worlds? [Seed, 11/9/09]

3 Questions: Sara Seager on searching for Earth-like planets

MIT planetary scientist Sara Seager has been studying exoplanets — planets circling stars other than the sun — for many years. The first such planet was discovered just 15 years ago, and now more than 400 others are known. This week, a paper co-authored by Seager and NASA scientist Drake Deming in the journal Nature reviews what we know about exoplanets so far, what we can expect to learn about them in the next decade or so, and the chances for finding a twin of our own planet. She has also just published an online book to answer questions about exoplanets and the lessons they hold. [Physorg.com, 11/23/09]

Quest for the Holy Grail: Sara Seager Seeks to Complete a Revolution

Sara Seager is fascinated by stories of explorers visiting uncharted places. From her groundbreaking work on the detection of exoplanet atmospheres to her innovative theories about life on other worlds, Seager has been a pioneer in the vast and unknown world of exoplanets. Now, like an astronomical Indiana Jones, shes on a quest after the fields holy grail - another Earth-like planet. [NASA, 10/6/08]

Two-qubit quantum system used to model the hydrogen molecule

Even though quantum computers are still in their crawling phase, computer scientists continue to push their limits. Recently, a group of scientists used a two-qubit quantum system to model the energies of a hydrogen molecule and found that using an iterative algorithm to calculate each digit of the phase shift gave very accurate results. Their system, while not directly extensible, has the potential to help map the energies of more complex molecules and could result in significant time and power savings compared to classical computers. [Arstechnica.com, 1/13/10]

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