Shocking Math - Filming Memory - Pal Selection - Suicide=Disease

[Marc Breedlove]

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/05/trouble-with-math-maybe-you-shou.html?ref=hp

Trouble With Math? Maybe You Should Get Your Brain Zapped

by Emily Underwood

If you are one of the 20% of healthy adults who
struggle with basic arithmetic, simple tasks like
splitting the dinner bill can be excruciating.
Now, a new study suggests that a gentle, painless
electrical current applied to the brain can boost
math performance for up to 6 months. Researchers
don't fully understand how it works, however, and there could be side effects.

The idea of using electrical current to alter
brain activity is nothing new­electroshock
therapy, which induces seizures for therapeutic
effect, is probably the best known and most
dramatic example. In recent years, however, a
slew of studies has shown that much milder
electrical stimulation applied to targeted
regions of the brain can dramatically accelerate
learning in a wide range of tasks, from
marksmanship to speech rehabilitation after stroke.

In 2010, cognitive neuroscientist Roi Cohen
Kadosh of the University of Oxford in the United
Kingdom showed that, when combined with training,
electrical brain stimulation can make people
better at very basic numerical tasks, such as
judging which of two quantities is larger.
However, it wasn't clear how those basic
numerical skills would translate to real-world math ability.

© 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science
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http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23555-new-memories-filmed-in-action-for-first-time.html

New memories filmed in action for first tim

by Douglas Heaven

Got a memory like a fish? The first study to
visualise live memory retrieval in the whole
brain has not only debunked the "three-second
memory" myth, but also sheds light on the brain
processes involved in forming long-term memories.

Even the haziest recollections have a physical
basis in the brain, but the mechanisms behind the
formation and retrieval of memories are not well
understood. By working with zebrafish, which are
small and partially transparent, Hitoshi Okamoto
at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Wako,
Japan, and colleagues were able to study the
whole brain at once. This allowed them to observe
the roles played by different brain regions as a memory was retrieved.

The team used fish with a genetically engineered
fluorescent protein in the brain that glows less
brightly when calcium levels increase – which
occurs when neurons fire. They were able to study
the activity of these proteins under a microscope.

First, the team trained a group of fish to
respond to a visual cue to avoid a small electric
shock. Each fish was placed in a tank containing
two compartments. When a red light shone in one
compartment the fish had to swim to the other to avoid the shock.

The researchers then selected the fish that had
learned to perform the avoidance task
successfully at least 80 per cent of the time and
looked at the activity in their brains while a
red light was switched on and off.

© Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/16/science/dogs-from-fearsome-predator-to-mans-best-friend.html?ref=science&_r=0

From Fearsome Predator to Man’s Best Friend

By CARL ZIMMER

Imagine a wolf catching a Frisbee a dozen times
in a row, or leading police officers to a stash
of cocaine, or just sleeping peacefully next to
you on your couch. It’s a stretch, to say the
least. Dogs may have evolved from wolves, but the
minds of the two canines are profoundly different.

Dog brains, as I wrote last month in The New York
Times, have become exquisitely tuned to our own.
Scientists are now zeroing in on some of the
genes that were crucial to the rewiring of dog brains.

Their results are fascinating, and not only
because they can help us understand how dogs
turned into man’s best friend. They may also
teach us something about the evolution of our own
brains: Some of the genes that evolved in dogs
are the same ones that evolved in us.

To trace the change in dog brains, scientists
have first had to work out how dog breeds are
related to one another, and how they’re all
related to wolves. Ya-Ping Zhang, a geneticist at
the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has led an
international network of scientists who have
compared pieces of DNA from different canines.
They’ve come to the conclusion that wolves
started their transformation into dogs in East Asia.

Those early dogs then spread to other parts of
the world. Many of the breeds we’re most familiar
with, like German shepherds and golden
retrievers, emerged only in the past few centuries.

© 2013 The New York Times Company
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http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23566-suicidal-behaviour-is-a-disease-psychiatrists-argue.html

Suicidal behaviour is a disease, psychiatrists argue

by Sara Reardon

As suicide rates climb steeply in the US a
growing number of psychiatrists are arguing that
suicidal behaviour should be considered as a
disease in its own right, rather than as a
behaviour resulting from a mood disorder.

They base their argument on mounting evidence
showing that the brains of people who have
committed suicide have striking similarities,
quite distinct from what is seen in the brains of
people who have similar mood disorders but who died of natural causes.

Suicide also tends to be more common in some
families, suggesting there may be genetic and
other biological factors in play. What's more,
most people with mood disorders never attempt to
kill themselves, and about 10 per cent of
suicides have no history of mental disease.

The idea of classifying suicidal tendencies as a
disease is being taken seriously. The team behind
the fifth edition of the Diagnostic Standards
Manual (DSM-5) – the newest version of
psychiatry's "bible", released at the American
Psychiatric Association's meeting in San
Francisco this week – considered a proposal to
have "suicide behaviour disorder" listed as a
distinct diagnosis. It was ultimately put on
probation: put into a list of topics deemed to
require further research for possible inclusion in future DSM revisions.

Another argument for linking suicidal people
together under a single diagnosis is that it
could spur research into the neurological and
genetic factors they have in common. This could
allow psychiatrists to better predict someone's
suicide risk, and even lead to treatments that stop suicidal feelings.

© Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.
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