A controversial autism treatment has gotten a credibility boost. The first rigorously scientific study of hyperbaric oxygen treatment, in which autistic children breathe in extra oxygen inside a pressurized chamber, found that children who received the treatment showed improvement in social interactions, although researchers note that the small study didn’t examine whether the treatment had long-term effects.
Study leader Dan Rossignol says the use of hyperbaric therapy for autism has been gaining popularity in the US where parents can buy their own hyperbaric chamber if they have a spare $14-17,000 [BBC News]. Other parents take their children to clinics for treatments that usually cost between $120 and $150 per session, and which typically aren’t covered by insurance providers. Rossignol says he expects the findings to generate controversy, and notes that he too was initially very sceptical of the idea but was prompted to do more research after the treatment showed benefits for his two sons who have autism. “We’re certainly not talking about a cure, we’re talking about improvements in behaviour, improving certain functions and quality of life” [BBC News].
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Using not much more than a brain scanner, scientists have successfully found a way to read people’s minds—or at least, certain thoughts in them. A London research team was able to determine where its volunteer subjects were located, in a computer-generated virtual environment, by using fMRI scanning to analyze activation patterns in the hippocampus area of their brains. After correlating this information with the subjects’ movements, the researchers found that they could accurately predict their subjects’ locations based solely on the scanner read-out.
The findings may bring scientists one step closer to understanding the workings of the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for short-term memory and spatial relationships but which has been too disorganized for scientists, until now, to decode. Led by Eleanor Maguire, the researchers focused on groups of neurons identified by Maguire in an earlier study of London taxi drivers, whose hippocampi were hyperdeveloped by years of mental navigation through the city’s mazelike streets…. The results “are an intriguing first step toward using fMRI to read out information about visuo-spatial scenes,” [Wired] said Arne Ekstrom, a California-based neuroscientist.
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Researchers have developed a treatment based on an injection of neural stem cells encased in a biodegradable polymer that replaced the brain tissue in rats that had been damaged by stroke. Led by British neurobiologist Mike Modo, the team was able to show that the hole in the brains of rats caused by a stroke was completely filled with “primitive” new nerve tissue within seven days. This raises the possibility of radically better treatments for a condition that is the leading cause of adult disability in industrialized countries [Technology Review].
Previous stem cell research in rats with stroke damage had seen some success, but was limited by the tendency of the cells, which lack structural support, to migrate into tissue outside the targeted area. For the new study, which will be published in Biomaterials, the researchers used the polymer PLGA to construct tiny balls one-tenth of a millimeter thick, and loaded them with neural stem cells. These were injected into holes in the brain created when the immune system removes dead tissue caused by a stroke. The polymer’s ready-made support structure helped the stem cells to form new brain tissue in the cavity [BBC].
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Deep brain stimulation can now be used to treat obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD, which causes uncontrollable worries and anxiety in its sufferers. Medtronic‘s Reclaim deep-brain stimulation (DBS) device received approval from the Food and Drug Administration after a study of 26 patients with severe OCD that showed a 40 percent reduction in symptoms after a year of deep brain stimulation therapy. All the patients had tried and failed other therapies [Chicago Tribune].
The Reclaim device is implanted under the skin of the chest and then connected to four electrodes in the brain. The electrodes deliver steady pulses of electricity that block abnormal brain signals [AP]; the device is controlled by a battery-run component outside the body. Hooman Azmi, a neurosurgeon at Hackensack University Medical Center, said, “This is essentially like a pacemaker for the brain” [WebMD Health News].
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Victims of child abuse may bear chemical marks on their genomes that alter the way they respond to stress as adults, according to a small study. Researchers say they detected changes, almost like genetic scars, to a region of the genome that either promotes or tamps down the expression of a certain gene involved in stress responses. This could help explain why childhood abuse, such as sexual abuse or neglect, can cause depression, other mental health effects and suicide, and could some day lead to treatments to help victims overcome their abusive childhoods [Reuters].
Researchers studied 36 brain samples from the Quebec Suicide Brain Bank: 12 from suicide victims who had been abused as children, 12 from suicide victims that suffered no known abuse, and a final 12 who died suddenly in accidents. They found that only the brains of abuse victims showed the changes.
The results are the latest exciting findings in the young field of epigenetics, the process by which environmental factors can alter the expression of genes. In epigenetic changes, the DNA sequence itself isn’t altered, but other mechanisms change certain genes’ activities. Psychiatrist Jonathan Mill says of the new study: “Whilst these results obviously need to be replicated, they provide a mechanism by which experiences early in life can have an effect on behaviour later in adulthood. The exciting thing about epigenetic alterations is that they are potentially reversible, and thus perhaps a future target for therapeutic intervention” [BBC News].
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People may become less vulnerable to bad memories by taking drugs commonly used to treat heart conditions, say Dutch researchers in a paper published in Nature Neuroscience. They believe beta-blocker drugs, usually given to patients following a heart attack or to manage hypertension, could help people suffering from anxiety and other consequences from tramautic experiences.
Led by Merel Kindt, the research team created a fearful memory in 60 subjects by associating a photograph of a spider with an electric shock. A day later, participants who had been given propranolol, a beta-blocker drug, showed less fear when exposed to the image again than did those who were given a placebo. The effect persisted even after the drug was out of the system and the subjects were retested. “The people did not forget seeing the photograph of the spider, but the fear associated with the image was erased” says Kindt [Science News].
This new use for beta-blockers depends on the mental mechanics involved with storing and remembering: Each time a memory is recalled it changes a little, and the new version is recorded in the long-term memory stash via brain chemical fluctuations in a process called reconsolidation. The beta-blockers could interfere with [certain other] brain chemicals, blocking reconsolidation of the emotional component of the memory, but leaving the rest of the memory intact [Science News]. Scientists are excited by the implications that the discovery could have for treating patients dealing with anxiety.
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The regular collisions and concussions that take place on the football field may have a cumulative effect on the players’ brains, according to several new studies. In one small study, researchers found that just a few concussions can have an impact on cognitive skills 30 years later, while the other, more dramatic study found that a deceased NFL player was suffering from a severe degenerative brain disease. Taken together, the studies add to the mounting evidence that repeated blows to the head in football games lead to debilitating later-life afflictions such as dementia [Washington Post].
The biopsy of the NFL lineman Tom McHale, who played from 1987 to 1995 and who died last May at the age of 45, was announced at a press conference timed to coincide with the preparations for the Super Bowl this Sunday. The biopsy showed that McHale was suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, researchers said. Known as C.T.E., the progressive condition results from repetitive head trauma and can bring on dementia in people in their 40s or 50s. Using techniques that can be administered only after a patient has died, doctors have identified C.T.E. in all six N.F.L. veterans between ages 36 and 50 who have been tested for the condition, further evidence of the dangers of improperly treated brain trauma in football [The New York Times].
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Playing the absorbing video game Tetris immediately after a traumatic experience could reduce the most jarring symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the flashbacks in which the distressing memory invades the brain. In an odd new study, researchers showed volunteers ugly images of nasty accidents, crushed-up skulls and bloody entrails from various sources. Then they asked half of them to play Tetris. While the other half apparently did nothing…. The Tetris players apparently suffered significantly fewer nasty memories of those ugly images than did those who were left idle [CNET].
The Tetris players may have experienced fewer flashbacks because they were distracted during a crucial window of opportunity, the few hours after the traumatic incident when the brain is consolidating the memory. Says lead author Emily Holmes: “We wanted to find a way to dampen down flashbacks – the raw sensory images of trauma that are over-represented in the memories of those with PTSD. Tetris may work by competing for the brain’s resources for sensory information. We suggest it specifically interferes with the way sensory memories are laid down in the period after trauma and thus reduces the number of flashbacks that are experienced afterwards” [BBC News]. Playing Tetris could be considered a “cognitive vaccine” against flashbacks, Holmes suggested.
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Gay young adults who were rejected by their families when they came out as teenagers are much more likely to attempt suicide, have unprotected sex, and have problems with drug use and depression, according to a new study. The findings are based on surveys of 224 gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender adults in California who ranged in age from 21 to 25. Gay Latinos were most likely to experience a poor reception from their parents, and had the highest rates of risk factors for HIV and mental health problems, according to the research [Scientific American].
The findings, published in the journal Pediatrics [subscription required], don’t prove that a family’s negative reaction to a child’s sexuality directly causes problems later in life. But it’s clear that “there’s a connection between how families treat gay and lesbian children and their mental and physical health” [HealthDay News] said social worker Caitlin Ryan, the study’s lead author. She found that teenagers who were rejected by their families were eight times as likely to attempt suicide, six times as likely to report serious depression, and three times as likely to have unprotected sex and use drugs.
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Happiness is catching and spreads like the flu, according to a study that followed a whole community of people for 20 years. The effect of one happy person could ripple through three degrees of separation, researchers report. “It is sometimes said that you can’t be happier than your least happy child. It is truly amazing to discover that when you replace the word ‘child’ with ‘best friend’s neighbor’s uncle,’ the sentence is still true,” [Boston Globe] said psychologist Daniel Gilbert, who was not involved in the study. The researchers liken the pattern of happiness transmission to the spread of a virus: those with the most number of happy contacts are the mostly likely to catch the happy bug.
The study, published in the British Medical Journal, followed more than 4,700 people living in Framingham, Massachusetts from 1983 to 2003. The participants answered periodic questionnaires about their emotional well-being and listed the names of relatives, friends, and co-workers, many of whom were also participating in the study. Researchers found that happiness wasn’t scattered evenly throughout the population but instead seemed to spread through social networks. “Happiness is like a stampede,” said [co-author] Nicholas Christakis… “Whether you’re happy depends not just on your own actions and behaviors and thoughts, but on those of people you don’t even know” [AP].
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It’s no fun being bullied, but new research supports what many teenagers have long suspected: A victim’s pain may be a bully’s gain. A new brain imaging study of aggressive teenage boys found that watching others being bullied triggered parts of their brains associated with pleasure. “It is entirely possible their brains are lighting in the way they are because they experience seeing pain in others as exciting and fun and pleasurable,”[Reuters] said co-author Dr. Benjamin Lahey.
The study subjects were 16 boys 16 to 18 years old, half of whom had aggressive conduct disorder and half of whom had no behavioral disorder. While their brains were hooked up to functional MRIs, the boys were shown video clips of people getting hurt either by accident, such as having a heavy object dropped on their hands, or by intentional actions by others, such as someone stomping on their feet. Lahey said he expected an emotionally indifferent response to pain from subjects with conduct disorder, a mental disorder characterized by aggressive, destructive or harmful behavior towards other people and animals and can include theft, substance abuse and sexual promiscuity, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Instead, fMRI scans showed a strong but highly atypical emotional response [ABC News].
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By manipulating a single protein found in the brains of mice, researchers can wipe out a mouse’s specific, traumatic memory without damaging brain cells, a new study reports. While the process is nowhere near ready for testing in humans, researchers say it does raise the possibility of novel treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health conditions. “While memories are great teachers and obviously crucial for survival and adaptation, selectively removing incapacitating memories, such as traumatic war memories or an unwanted fear, could help many people live better lives,” said [lead researcher] Joe Tsien [Telegraph].
Humans have the same so-called “memory molecule” in our brains, and the announcement is certain to prompt speculation that sci-fi scenarios of memory erasure are almost upon us. The concept was the premise of the popular 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in which two former lovers pay a “memory-erasure” service to expunge the unhappy affair from their minds [HealthDay News].
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Teenage boys with behavior problems may be able to blame their brain chemistry, according to a new study. Psychologists studied boys with a history of antisocial behavior and measured their levels of the hormone cortisol, which usually surges during stressful situations, causing people to focus and behave more cautiously. They found that the troubled boys didn’t have the normal cortisol spike when they were put under stress, suggesting that they weren’t getting a chemical signal to regulate their emotions and actions.
Researchers say the findings suggest that some bad behavior should be considered a form of mental illness. “Most research has looked at social factors like peer groups, family life and socioeconomic factors,” said [lead researcher] Graeme Fairchild…. “These findings basically indicate that antisocial behavior is probably more biologically based than many people recognize and is similar to conditions like depression and anxiety” [Reuters].
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Older men have an increased risk of fathering children who eventually develop bipolar disorder, according to new research. It’s the latest study to refute the earlier theory that men could father children into their old age with no ill effects; other recent studies have linked older fathers to an increased risk of miscarriages, and to children with schizophrenia or autism.
The theory linking paternal age with an offspring’s health rests on the genetics of aging sperm. Spontaneous mutations can accumulate in the genes of a man’s sperm cells as he ages. These cells divide as many as 660 times by the time a man reaches 40, by some estimates. Each division increases the risk of acquiring a harmful mutation from erroneous gene copying, the theory holds [Science News]. Women are born with their full complement of eggs already in place in the ovaries, and therefore don’t have to worry about increased genetic errors as they age.
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Two large, international studies have independently found three genetic mutations that are linked to a greatly increased risk of schizophrenia, but say the rare mutations only account for a small percentage of schizophrenia cases. The identification of the three mutations is being hailed as a breakthrough, as no genetic factors had been definitively linked to the disease before. But in a finding of even greater importance, the studies suggest that there’s no easy answer to the question of what causes the devastating mental illness. Instead of a common genetic problem, schizophrenia may be triggered by many rare mutations that cause subtly different variants of the disease.
“What is beginning to emerge is that a lot of the risk of brain diseases is conferred by rare [genetic] deletions,” [study author Kari] Stefansson said…. The new focus on rare mutations suggests that natural selection is highly efficient at removing schizophrenia-causing genes from the population. Despite selection against the disease, according to this new idea, schizophrenia continues to appear because it is driven by a spate of new mutations that occur all the time in the population. [The New York Times].
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