The breakthrough means they can now see exactly how mutations in the parkin gene cause the disease in an estimated one in 10 patients with Parkinson’s.

…

“This is the first time that human dopamine neurons have ever [...]]]> BBC reports on neurologists who’ve managed to not only create brain cells in the lab – but to make Parkinson’s-diseased cells from scratch:

The breakthrough means they can now see exactly how mutations in the parkin gene cause the disease in an estimated one in 10 patients with Parkinson’s.

…

“This is the first time that human dopamine neurons have ever been generated from Parkinson’s disease patients with parkin mutations,” said Dr Jian Feng who led the investigations.

“Before this, we didn’t even think about being able to study the disease in human neurons.

“The brain is so fully integrated. It’s impossible to obtain live human neurons to study.”

They started with skin cells from people who had the parkin gene mutation that causes Parkinson’s.

Using off-the-shelf electronics, he can stream videos using an ordinary light bulb fitted with signal-processing technology of his own design. The lamp shines directly on to a hole cut into the oblong box on which it sits. Inside this box is a [...]]]> Wired is all aglow over a new wireless transmission system that uses light instead of radio waves:

Using off-the-shelf electronics, he can stream videos using an ordinary light bulb fitted with signal-processing technology of his own design. The lamp shines directly on to a hole cut into the oblong box on which it sits. Inside this box is a receiver that converts the light signal into a high-speed data stream, and a transmitter that projects the data on to a screen as a short video. If Haas puts his hand in front of the lamp, excluding the light, the video stops.

Haas, 43, holds the chair of mobile communications at Edinburgh University’s Institute for Digital Communications. His demo is scientifically groundbreaking: it proves that large amounts of data, in multiple parallel streams, can be transferred using various forms of light (infrared, ultraviolet and visible). The technology, he says, has huge commercial potential. His device can be used with regular lighting and electronics — albeit reconfigured — and could transform the way we access everything from video to games, accelerating the speed of internet access by many hundreds of megabits. It could let us download movies from the lamps in our homes, read maps from streetlights and listen to music from illuminated billboards in the street.

The system is based on a simple discovery: that LEDs can flicker on an off faster than our eyes can detect.

Dr Nick Wright and colleagues at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at [University College London] tested the impact of testosterone on the levels of co-operative decision-making accomplished by groups. They publish their findings this morning in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society [...]]]> Irish Times reveals the link between lousy decision-making and the hormone linked to lust and aggression:

Dr Nick Wright and colleagues at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at [University College London] tested the impact of testosterone on the levels of co-operative decision-making accomplished by groups. They publish their findings this morning in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

…

Men already have high levels of the hormone and if extra is given it will quickly be broken down. For this reason only women were used as subjects, Dr Wright said.

Supplements were given to elevate their testosterone levels temporarily and the women conducted a series of tests to measure levels of co-operation.

Dr Wright used 17 pairs of female volunteers who were asked to watch images on separate screens, trying to identify a particular target. If they co-operated well, their results would be better than if they did not collaborate on the task.

The tests took several days with both subjects in a pair receiving a testosterone supplement one day and a placebo on another. In this way the researchers could directly compare levels of co-operation when influenced by the hormone.

“When we gave them testosterone the benefit delivered by co-operation was halved,” Dr Wright said.

So why do team sports seem to be so testosterone-linked?
[via splinister]

This study created “neural precursor” cells, which can develop into three types of brain cell: neurons, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes.

These precursor cells have the advantage [...]]]> BBC News ponders what it means for our bodies when Stanford University professors start shuffling around our cellular building blocks. Not turning stem cells into other kinds of cells, but directly transforming skin into brain:

This study created “neural precursor” cells, which can develop into three types of brain cell: neurons, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes.

These precursor cells have the advantage that, once created, they can be grown in a laboratory into very large numbers. This could be critical if the cells were to be used in any therapy.

Brain cells and skin cells contain the same genetic information, however, the genetic code is interpreted differently in each. This is controlled by “transcription factors”.

The scientists used a virus to infect skin cells with three transcription factors known to be at high levels in neural precursor cells.

After three weeks about one in 10 of the cells became neural precursor cells.

Lead researcher Prof Marius Wernig said: “We are thrilled about the prospects for potential medical use of these cells.

“We’ve shown the cells can integrate into a mouse brain and produce a missing protein important for the conduction of electrical signal by the neurons.”

Let us take a moment, while contemplating the sleek engineering of the quiet engine sonic inlet, to consider that tie. That man is not a model. He is, in all likelihood, an engineer. An actual rocket scientist. There are no horn-rim glasses, no pocket protectors and neither white coat nor jumpsuit. Perhaps… and I can find no higher resolution [...]]]>

Let us take a moment, while contemplating the sleek engineering of the quiet engine sonic inlet, to consider that tie. That man is not a model. He is, in all likelihood, an engineer. An actual rocket scientist. There are no horn-rim glasses, no pocket protectors and neither white coat nor jumpsuit. Perhaps… and I can find no higher resolution than the NASA Image Library’s photo… that white bow-tie shape is, in fact, ear protection, removed and placed casually around the scientist’s neck. Perhaps.

But one can dream. One can dream of aeronautic laboratories filled with men in corduroy blazers, oxblood Chelsea boots and maroon pants. And, yes, ties. White ties. Ties wide enough to shake the stars from their heavens.

Professor David Nutt, from the Department of Medicine at Imperial College London, the senior author of both studies, said: “Psychedelics are thought of as ‘mind-expanding’ drugs so it has commonly been assumed that they work by increasing brain activity, but surprisingly, we [...]]]> Imperial College, London, is learning what makes psilocybin mushrooms *trippy* – and what that means for our brains:

Professor David Nutt, from the Department of Medicine at Imperial College London, the senior author of both studies, said: “Psychedelics are thought of as ‘mind-expanding’ drugs so it has commonly been assumed that they work by increasing brain activity, but surprisingly, we found that psilocybin actually caused activity to decrease in areas that have the densest connections with other areas. These hubs constrain our experience of the world and keep it orderly. We now know that deactivating these regions leads to a state in which the world is experienced as strange.”
…
The function of these areas, the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), is the subject of debate among neuroscientists, but the PCC is proposed to have a role in consciousness and self-identity. The mPFC is known to be hyperactive in depression, so psilocybin’s action on this area could be responsible for some antidepressant effects that have been reported. Similarly, psilocybin reduced blood flow in the hypothalamus, where blood flow is increased during cluster headaches, perhaps explaining why some sufferers have said symptoms improved under psilocybin.

After drilling for two decades through more than two miles of antarctic ice, Russian scientists are on the verge of entering a vast, [...]]]> Who knows what dim, multiform entities could yet lurk for silent millennia beneath that hostile, white blanket of impervious snow and unrelenting wind? Washington Post is almost ready to discover what ancient secrets lie in Lake Vostok:

After drilling for two decades through more than two miles of antarctic ice, Russian scientists are on the verge of entering a vast, dark lake that hasn’t been touched by light for more than 20?million years.

Scientists are enormously excited about what life-forms might be found there but are equally worried about contaminating the lake with drilling fluids and bacteria, and the potentially explosive “de-gassing” of a body of water that has especially high concentrations of oxygen and nitrogen.

…

“This is a huge moment for science and exploration, breaking through to this enormous lake that we didn’t even know existed until the 1990s,” said John Priscu, a researcher at Montana State University who has long been involved in antarctic research, including a study of Vostok ice cores.

“If it goes well, a breakthrough opens up a whole new chapter in our understanding of our planet and possibly moons in our solar system and planets far beyond,” he said. “If it doesn’t go well, it casts a pall over the whole effort to explore this wet underside of Antarctica.”

…

[Robin Bell, of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University,] who has studied Vostok using satellite imaging and other above-surface instruments, said the lake is part of a complex system in which ice sheets bring in meltwater at their bottoms and later carry refrozen water elsewhere. She said that although the lake has not “felt the wind” in 20?million to 30?million years, the water in it is not as ancient — in the 100,000s to low millions of years old. The only ancient water present, she said, is probably in the sediment at the bottom.

…[T]his is “the first study to show that pythons are having impacts on prey populations—and unfortunately those impacts appear to be pretty dramatic,” said study leader Michael Dorcas, a herpetologist at Davidson College in North [...]]]> National Geographic is watching South Florida with a growing sense of unease over the alien monsters eating any creature who wanders into the Everglades:

…[T]his is “the first study to show that pythons are having impacts on prey populations—and unfortunately those impacts appear to be pretty dramatic,” said study leader Michael Dorcas, a herpetologist at Davidson College in North Carolina.

“We started the study after we realized, Man, we’re not seeing a lot of these animals around anymore,” Dorcas said.

But “when we did the calculations, we were pretty astonished.”

…

For the study, Dorcas and colleagues conducted nighttime surveys of live and dead animals on roads between 2003 and 2011. Such numbers provide estimates of how many animals of a certain species are present in a given area.

The scientists compared these data with similar surveys conducted in 1996 and 1997.

Before 2000 it was common to see mammals such as rabbits, red foxes, gray foxes, Virginia opossums, raccoons, and white-tailed deer on roadways after dark, the team says.

But the 2003 to 2011 surveys—which covered a total of nearly 35,400 miles (57,000) kilometers of road—revealed “severe declines” in mammal sightings, according to the study, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Raccoon observations dropped by 99.3 percent, opossum by 98.9 percent, and bobcat by 87.5 percent. The scientists saw no rabbits or foxes at all during their surveys.

Though sampling roadkill seems like a really clever idea, I do think there’s a problem with their methodology. During the recession, people have been driving around a lot less, especially over the bits of highway that lie between coasts (not so many weekend trips to Naples or Miami Beach). Not so much fewer animals as fewer cars. I wonder if they compensated for that.

It has been known for some time that house mice (Mus musculus) produce ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) during courtship but it has generally been assumed that these are no more than squeaks. However, recent spectrographic analyses have revealed that USVs [...]]]> Vienna’s University of Veterinary Medicine has been listening to the mice as the tiny Casanovas sing to impress the babes:

It has been known for some time that house mice (Mus musculus) produce ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) during courtship but it has generally been assumed that these are no more than squeaks. However, recent spectrographic analyses have revealed that USVs are complex and show features of song. Although the vocalizations are inaudible to human ears, when playbacks of recorded songs are slowed down their similarity to bird song becomes striking. Frauke Hoffmann, Kerstin Musolf and Dustin Penn of the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna’s Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology aimed to learn what type of information is contained in males’ songs for the discerning ear of the female mouse to detect. Their initial studies, the first to study song in wild mice, confirmed that males emit songs when they encounter a females’ scent and that females are attracted to males’ songs. Additionally, the scientists discovered that females are able to distinguish siblings from unrelated males by their songs – even though they had previously never heard their brothers sing.

[via keepyourpebbles]

[O]ne of the challenges in treating these severely depressed patients is that there simply isn’t any drug that provides quick relief, says Anu Matorin, medical director of the Psychiatric Emergency Center [at the Texas Medical Center].

…

Mental [...]]]> Into the K-hole and out of altogether darker hole… NPR looks at the new use for an old club drug (and veterinary anesthetic):

[O]ne of the challenges in treating these severely depressed patients is that there simply isn’t any drug that provides quick relief, says Anu Matorin, medical director of the Psychiatric Emergency Center [at the Texas Medical Center].

…

Mental health researchers got interested in ketamine because of reports that it could make depression vanish almost instantly.

In contrast, drugs like Prozac take weeks or even months. And the frustrating thing is that depression medications really haven’t changed much since Prozac arrived in the 1970s, says Sanjay Mathew from Baylor College of Medicine, who is in charge of the ketamine study at Ben Taub.

“Everything since then has been essentially incremental,” he says. “There have been tweaks of existing molecules.”

But ketamine represents much more than a tweak, Mathews says.

“It’s a completely different mechanism,” he says. “And the focus is on really rapidly helping someone get out of a depressive episode.”

…

I talk to Carlos Zarate, who does ketamine research at the NIH and has never met Merrill. Zarate says patients typically say, ” ‘I feel that something’s lifted or feel that I’ve never been depressed in my life. I feel I can work. I feel I can contribute to society.’ And it was a different experience from feeling high. This was feeling that something has been removed.”

I compare this to what Merrill said about her experience: “No more fogginess. No more heaviness. I feel like I’m a clean slate right now. I want to go home and see friends or, you know, go to the grocery store and cook the family dinner.”

Apparently, one of the big problems with ketamine research is that it’s really hard to double-blind for it. It’s so effective, that patients and researchers immediately know which group has been given the treatment and which the placebo.