News this week from the rarified realm of science research is both interesting and far-reaching. And no, by far-reaching I’m not talking about discovery that the planet Saturn has a huge, invisible ring nobody noticed before.

In the field of physics, some may have heard of Paul Dirac’s postulated magnetic monopoles – the quantum of the magnetic force, with a single pole instead of two. Dirac postulated that these must exist, and led to his famous ’strings’ (which eventually led to some current GUT models). But nobody has ever actually ’seen’ a monopole, so it’s been an open question of whether such beasties exist. Now, an NIST research team believe they’ve found the next best thing, monopoles the size of molecules!

They of course aren’t real monopoles, but apparently behave the same predicted way. Thus these synthetic compounds could allow scientists to do further research in the lab rather than just on paper napkins. They will be testing monopole predictions with these spin ice molecules, such as whether the postulated particles obey Coulomb’s Law. Stay tuned, this could get fascinating quickly!

Next up is a study about the ubiquitous BPA body burdens 93% of us carry around these days. BPA is a common chemical found in some plastics and epoxy resins. A paper published in Environmental Health Perspectives this week from researchers at Simon Fraser University, UNC-CH and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital linked prenatal BPA exposure to unusually aggressive, hyperactive behavior in 2-year old girls.

Neurodevelopmental disorders – ADD, ADHD, the Autism spectrum, etc. – have been most prevalent in young boys, who represent some 80% of the diagnoses. Further research on this environmental contaminant should be watched, as if the connection is solid, we can expect more and more young girls to suffer the same sorts of problems. BPA has also been linked to fertility problems, growth retardation and learning disorders as well as permanent changes to DNA in mice.

Speaking of Autism’s spectrum of neurodevelopmental disorders, researchers from MIT and the Center for Human Genetic Research at Massachusetts General Hospital have discovered that a single letter change in DNA may be indicative of Autism. This is known as a Single Nucleotide Polymorphism [SNP], and researchers tied it to chromosomes 5, 6, 20. The gene on chromosome 5 is associated with neuron development and autistic children showed lower expression.

This is just one piece of what researchers expect is a highly complex genetic puzzle, but it might lead to tests that can identify those at risk of producing autistic children, and identifying it in children very early. It also could help lead to specific treatments in the future. Progress is being made at last in dealing with this spectrum as a real medical condition and not just an indicator of lousy parenting skills. Which has been one of the most hurtful urban myths ever propagated by people who had no idea what they were talking about. That some of them were psychologists and physicians is sad, so we can all be thankful that some real answers are coming in.

Researchers at the University of Manchester in England have discovered that the herpes simplex virus – the virus that causes cold sores – is a major cause of the beta amyloid protein plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer’s sufferers, suggesting new methods of treatment.

Cold Sore Virus Linked to Alzheimer’s Disease: New Treatment, or Even Vaccine Possible

A majority of people are infected with the herpes simplex virus, which remains in the peripheral nervous system for the life of the person, occasionally showing up to cause cold sores. It is treated, usually when the sores show up, with antiviral agents such as acyclovir, and outbreaks can often be shortened by taking L-Lysine amino acid supplements. The discovery of a connection between herpes simplex and the amyloid plaques of AD lends hope to the idea that Alzheimer’s may one day soon be treatable with antiviral drugs, or even that a vaccine could be developed against both the herpes infection and AD.

The research team examining plaques and neurofibrillary tangles from AD patients discovered that HSV1 viral DNA was found in 90% of those abnormal protein structures. The same team had previously found that HSV1 infection of nerve cells induces deposition of the plaques. Previous treatments for this dread disease of aging have focused on symptoms of the disease rather than any root causes. As the population ‘bump’ known as the “Baby Boom” generation ages, this discovery may help to prevent a great deal of suffering both for victims of the disease and their families.

The Manchester team hope to receive funding that will enable them to investigate in detail the effect of treating early Alzheimer’s patients with antiviral agents. The paper was published in the Journal of Pathology, Volume 217, entitled Herpes simplex virus type 1 DNA is located within Alzheimer’s disease amyloid plaques.

Scientists at the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that some people who have the plaques in their brain associated with AD still manage to score well on tests of cognitive ability if they spent more years in school, and put their cognitive abilities to work on a regular basis. Those with less education, who may not regularly exercise their brains than better educated people, tend to display more symptoms of cognitive decline.

Strong Educatiion Blunts Effects of Alzheimer’s Disease -

“As expected, those whose brains showed little evidence of plaque buildup scored high on all the tests. But while most participants with high levels of brain plaque scored poorly on the tests, those who had done postgraduate work still scored well. Despite signs that Alzheimer’s might already be ravaging the brains of this subgroup, their cognitive abilities had not declined and they had not become demented.”

So get busy, all you aging Boomers! Now that the nation’s economy is tanking and the government’s printing enough money to deforest the Amazon basin [snark], it’s time to go back to school! Or just audit some courses that interest you. Or take some online courses, just for fun. Download that computerized Scrabble game, do crossword puzzles, join a book discussion clutch, whatever. I want to see you put the burn to that flabby brain, whip it into shape!

…and the payoff just might be that you keep more of your mind later in your life than you otherwise would!

USPS Alzheimer’s Stamp

Rapid Alzheimer’s Improvement After New Immune-based Treatment

The open access journal BMC Neurology published research this week detailing some amazing results from the use of the anti-tumor necrosis factor-alpha [TNF-alpha] drug to treat symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease from a novel immune system approach. Researchers documented improvement in language function within minutes of administering the drug, tending to confirm preliminary evidence that disrupted neural communication in Alzheimer’s patients may be reversible.

This is a very hopeful development, as are results from clinical drug trials in recent years slowing the progression of the disease in elderly patients as well as ongoing research into substances that may help clear the beta amyloid placques in the brain tissue, characteristic of the disease. As the Baby Boomer generation ages, it is estimated that up to 10 million of them will get this awful disease.

Some doctors are expressing concern about unduly raising hopes in patients and their families on these very early findings. Dr. Sam Gandy, chairman of the Alzheimer’s Association’s medical and science council, has expressed suspicion due to the private nature of the research because the lead researcher has a financial interest in the drug. It is hoped that other laboratories and scientists will be able to duplicate the results, but that more rigorous clinical work remains to be done.

UCLA associate professor of neurology John Ringman and colleagues have reported in the journal Neurology that there may be a way to detect Alzheimer’s even before symptoms appear by measuring the level of certain proteins in the blood and spinal fluid. These proteins are potentially useful biomarkers to identify and track progression of the disease before the patient shows any signs of deteriorating mental acuity.

The amount of suffering for the families of those 10 million people could be reduced drastically if there were effective treatments, so there is a good deal of public and private research ongoing. Hopefully when the Boomers reach an age where they have ready access to medical care via Medicare, diagnosis and treatment will be available to them.

Most parents know very well how heart-warming their baby’s smile can be, to the point where just doing something silly to get that smile-fix becomes a regular way of life. I’ve heard all sorts of weird philosophies about baby smiles – “it’s just gas,” “they’ve got the intelligence of rats,” etc., etc., things that only non-parents would ever think of.

So it’s cool that researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine have finally demonstrated the addictive quality of baby smiles, as reported recently in the journal Pediatrics. Turns out that baby smiles actually ‘light up’ the reward centers of the human brain, particularly in Moms – it’s what they call a “Natural High.”

Baby’s Smile Is A Natural High

The researchers hope their work will help scientists understand the unique mother-infant bonding so critical for proper child development (and mothers’ mental health).

No doubt this is fine research, and it’s gratifying to know that science is actually looking at phenomena they could have known all along if they’d just asked a Mom. Oh, well. That famous scientific skepticism needs physical ‘proof’ of physical phenomena before it will believe anything most regular people know from direct empirical experience. Maybe they’ll now come up with a pill that mimics this high, which will no doubt be a big item on the black market for pharmaceuticals…

Deep Brain Stimulation in Hypothalamus Triggers Deja Vu in Patient

A Neuroscience team in Canada tried an experimental treatment for a patient with morbid obesity a variety of treatments failed to control. They were stimulating potential appetite suppressing sites in his brain’s hypothalamus via implanted electrodes when he suddenly had a strong feeling of deja vu.

The ‘live’ memory recurred under double-blind restimulation. An arched bundle of fibers in the hypothalamus called the fornix was shown to drive temporal lobe and hippocampus activity, important parts of the brain’s memory circuitry.

This is a fascinating article, a sure eye-catcher for any of us who have ever experienced a strong sense of deja vu. Yet what it describes doesn’t sound much like deja vu to me, per my own experience and the general understanding of the phenomenon among most people I know.

Deja vu isn’t a dim memory that suddenly presents itself “as if” we’re there right now. It’s the sudden realization that what’s happening right now is something we’ve experienced before. I’ve had it so strongly that I knew what people were going to say and do before they said and did it!

So I have to wonder if perhaps the neuroscientists don’t have a clear understanding of the phenomenon, or the patient didn’t know the difference between reliving an old memory and remembering the present, or the writer of the press release didn’t know what the term refers to. I’m leaning toward the last possibility, since the actual quotations of the researchers speak of memory, not deja vu. Yet another terminology confusion in the science press, but definitely an interesting finding!

With the melodic strains of Ernie’s Greatest Hit “Rubber Ducky” echoing my head, fans will be delighted to know that the dynamic duo created by Jim Henson and Frank Oz in 1969 as stars of the famous Sesame Street educational program have even more to do with brain development that originally thought!

Research published in the January 10 online issue of PLoS Biology reports A Mechanism Regulating the Onset of Sox2 Expression in the Embryonic Neural Plate has been discovered.

The neural plate is a region of the ectoderm cells in early embryo development that gives rise to the entire central nervous system in vertebrate embryos. The earliest molecular marker that cells in this plate are beginning to differentiate into their respective neural types is the transcription factor known as Sox2. The researchers, from University College London, the Université de Lyon and CNRS/INRA in France and the Wellcome/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute for Cancer and Developmental Biology in Cambridge, found specific protein interactions that regulate the expression of N2, the earliest enhancer of Sox2. N2 directs Sox2 expression to the largest part of the neural plate.

The three coiled-coil domain proteins are ERNI, Geminin and BERT. Both BERT and ERNI also control when different organ systems in the developing embryo begin to form. Because just a few signals instruct cells to form the thousands of different cell types, timing is everything. The researchers describe a sequence of reactions that take place when the embryo is just a few hours old, which together act as a timing mechanism for developmental expression. The development of neural cells is repressed for a time so that other cells in the embryo that will develop into internal organs and skin get a head start on the central nervous system. To make this happen BERT binds to ERNI and other proteins that unblog the expression of Sox2 at just the right time to begin development of the brain and nervous system.

The discoveries and new understanding of how this signaling works in very early embryo development will have significant implications for stem cell research, which hopes to discover the biochemical signals that tell a stem cell what to become. One of these days – I’m hoping in my children’s generation – it may be possible for people with heart, kidney, liver or lung disease, spinal cord or brain injuries to “grow their own” new organs and neural cells from stem cells.

Links:

A Mechanism Regulating the Onset of Sox2 Expression in the Embryonic Neural Plate

Two Proteins, Called BERT and ERNI, Control Brain Development

The researchers from Oxford University in Britain believe that the signal couldbe used to refine pain relief techniques, offering better treatment for people in pain. The signal is identified as low frequency brain waves emanating from two regions deep in the brain. The more pain being experienced, the longer the waves last.

“It is an objective measure that correlates with a subjective measure,” said Morten Kringelbach, head of the research team. They hope this signal could help refiine deep-brain stimulation for chronic pain management through the development of a stimulator that only kicks in when these low frequency signals begin.

The ability to treat chronic pain directly without the use of drugs that affect consciousness or depress general physiology would be a significant advancement in medical care, alleviating the suffering of millions of people every year.

Related Links:

Scientists create targeted pain management

Flotation tanks help reduce pain

American Academy of Pain Management

How To Cope With Pain Blog

Lots of interesting science reports lately about all things neurological, in brains and in our remote sensor neurons. First up is a surprising (or maybe not so surprising) finding by a researcher at the University of Hertfordshire – the harder we try to mentally suppress our thoughts and desires, the more we will indulge in the activity we’re trying to suppress.

Resistance to Thoughts of Chocolate is Futile

This research project dealt with something quite simple, chocolate. Which some say is addictive, but that’s a whole different area of research. Dr. Erskine of Hertfordshire divided 134 young (avg. age 22) people into two groups to investigate how our thinking affects our behaviors.

The participants were asked to try two brands of chocolate and answer questions about which they preferred and why. Then they were given two periods of thought verbalization where they were to talk about their thoughts while alone. On top of this they were told they must think about – or not think about – certain things. Including chocolate.

Among those told not to think about the chocolate which was still present and available to them, consumption of chocolate was significantly higher than in those who could think about chocolate all they liked. Among those who were told to go ahead and focus on thinking about chocolate, the males ate significantly more chocolate than the females.

It’s always nice to get scientific confirmation of things we already know. Meanwhile, psychologists at the University of Pittsburgh tell us that Human Decision-making Takes Multiple Brain Regions Performing Individual Functions, something most people who think about such things also already knew.

It’s not new news that there is a hierarchy of brain regions that separately receive inputs from our remote sensors and process the information before we become aware of what we are perceiving. What psychology professor Mark Wheeler tells us IS new is how these regions work together for decision-making – knowledge integration and action planning based on the perceptual information.

Decision making forwards the processed information to the object processing, reasoning and memory circuits for evaluation and classification in line with previous experience and memory.

A particularly interesting finding from studies at Drexel and Northwestern Universities tells us that Brain Activity Differs for Creative and Noncreative Thinkers. They found that creative thinkers made use of more right-hemisphere involvement in their thinking, which indicates that creative thinkers process more loosely connected or “remote” associations between elements of a problem than noncreative thinkers do.

From that report, “…creative and methodical solvers exhibited different activity in areas of the brain that process visual information. The pattern of “alpha” and “beta” brainwaves in creative solvers was consistent with diffuse rather than focused visual attention. This may allow creative individuals to broadly sample the environment for experiences that can trigger remote associations to produce an Aha! Moment.” Cool.

Finally, in the weird world of serious sensations that aren’t what they appear to be, researchers at the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University report that they’ve (once again) discovered the World’s Hottest Chili Pepper.

We fans of hot chili peppers already know that the alkaloid chemical capsaicin in pepper ribs and seeds is what stimulates our heat and pain sensing nerves to think we’re being badly burned, when no actual burn tissue damage is taking place. It apparently evolved as a way for the plant to get its seeds distributed by only certain animals (birds) and not by others (mammals).

To get a feel for the ‘heat’ this Indian “Ghost Chile” [Bhut Jolokia] is capable of producing, consider the lowly jalapeno, which has a Scoville heat unit [SHU] index of about 2,500. Those firey habaneros rate from 300,000 to 500,000 SHU, making them among the hottest known until now. The previous record holder was the Red Savina, which measured at a solid 577,000 SHU.

The Bhut Jolokia ghost chile weighed in at a cool million SHU. Not very likely to find its way into that pickled pepper jar on the bar at the local pub, as the reaction just might really hurt somebody. The researcher do think it may have an impact in the processed food industry, since it would take much less of the pepper to impart some serious heat to chiles, salsas, sauces and stews.

Links:

Resistance to Thoughts of Chocolate is Futile

Human Decision-making Takes Multiple Brain Regions Performing Individual Functions

Brain Activity Differs for Creative and Noncreative Thinkers

What Makes Peppers Hot May Also Be Cool For What Ails You

World’s Hottest Chile Pepper Discovered