Traumatic memories ‘could soon be erased from your mind’

Traumatic memory is a theoretical concept used to describe a significant memory, usually of a traumatic nature, that has become unavailable for recall; also called motivated forgetting in which a subject blocks out painful or traumatic times in one’s life. Scientists say they are able to erase painful memories, paving the way for new treatments of debilitating phobias and stress disorders.

 

Neurobiologists from the Georgia College of Medicine found they could selectively eliminate memories in mice, without damaging their brains in the process. The technique targets a protein that is crucial in the formation of memories. Making the mice over-produce this ‘memory molecule’, while recalling a disturbing event caused the memory to be eliminated.

 

It has parallels with the popular film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where characters played by Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey decided to wipe their memories of eachother after a painful breakup.

 

However, the researchers said wiping should only be used for traumatic memories. ‘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,’ leader researcher Dr Joe Tsien said in the journal Neuron.

 

The researchers placed mice in a chamber and played a sound, then mildly shocked the mice’s feet.  The mice learned to associate both the chamber and the sound with a shock and would freeze in anticipation of getting shocked when they entered the chamber or heard the sound.

 

Firstly a mouse given increased amount of the protein alpha-CaMKII after being placed in the chamber without the sound. It only forgot the chamber and froze next time the sound was played.

 

Then a mouse was given the protein in the chamber with the sound it associated with being shocked. Later when placed in the same conditions it didn’t freeze. This suggests memory erasure was limited to that being recalled at the time.

 

Despite the exciting breakthrough, Dr Tsien warned it could be years before they honed the technique for humans who have far more complicated brains. ‘No one should expect to have a pill do the same in humans any time soon, we are barely at the foot of a very tall mountain.’

 

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Google to sell books online in ‘great leap’ for web publishing

Google is an American public corporation, earning revenue from advertising related to its Internet search, e-mail, online mapping, office productivity, social networking, and video sharing services as well as selling advertising-free versions of the same technologies. Google has struck a ‘ground-breaking’ deal with the U.S. publishing industry to sell books online.

 

Internet users will download millions of titles – many out of print – or buy content chapter-by-chapter under the agreement. The move, which has been compared to the iTunes revolution, has been hailed as ‘a great leap’ in electronic publishing history.

 

Former book worms will view free samples of the titles, which they search for using Google, and get the option to buy more. The internet giant is now in negotiations with rights holders and governments to strike other deals outside the U.S.

 

Google will pay royalties to the Book Rights Registry, which will distribute them to authors and publishers, but the end cost to users is not yet known. Both publishers and authors have hailed the move as a key moment in electronic publishing. Chairman of the Publisher’s Association Richard Sarnoff said: ‘This historic settlement is a win for everyone.

 

Roy Blount, president of the Authors’ Guild said: ‘It’s hard work writing a book and even harder work getting paid for it. This deal makes good sense.’

 

The agreement, which is awaiting court approval, resolves a lawsuit by authors and publishers against Google Book Search after it scanned and uploaded U.S. books still in copyright. Google began scanning and uploading books in other countries which had fallen out of copyright four years ago, but in America it uploaded books that were just out of print.

 

It is hoped the deal will see the same success as Apple’s iTunes music store, which revolutionised the record industry in 2003.

 

Neil Denny, editor-in-chief of The Bookseller, said that increasing access to books will ultimately increase demand. ‘It’s the long tail argument writ large, and I’m not only talking about books but also book content.

 

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Cold viruses activate killer genes, study finds

WASHINGTON – A cold viruses is an illness caused by a virus infection located in the nose. Colds also involve the sinuses, ears, and bronchial tubes. The common cold virus activates dozens of immune system genes in the lining of the nose, including some natural antivirals that might be used as the basis of new drugs, researchers reported on Friday.

 

It also appears to shut down some genes, but to a lesser degree, the international team reported in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Of particular interest is a gene that controls a natural antiviral called viperin, said David Proud of the University of Calgary in Alberta, who led the study.

 

Viperin, only discovered in the 1990s, was known to be involved in other viral infections but not the common cold, Proud said. “This had never been examined during rhinovirus infections,” he said. Proud and colleagues, including a team at cold remedy maker Procter & Gamble Co, tested 35 people who agreed to be infected with a common cold virus called human rhinovirus 16.

 

Hours after infection, the researchers scraped a little bit of the lining from inside the volunteers’ noses and analyzed gene expression, or activity, in the cells.Every cell in the body carries all the genes, but certain genes become more or less active during various activities.

 

“I think that is the ideal approach to trying to treat these viral infections. If you can find out what are the body’s natural defenses, can you either boost them or supplement them?” Proud said in a telephone interview. 

 

Others had looked at immune responses one by one. “This was really the first study that looked at the entire human genome,” Proud said. “We confirmed some of the things we knew, and we found an awful lot more that we weren’t aware of.”

 

Many, including RSV and rhinoviruses, are linked with more serious conditions such as asthma and chronic bronchitis, now grouped with emphysema as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

 

“In young children, if they have recurrent viral infections in early life that are rhinovirus-driven, they are 10 times more likely to develop asthma,” Proud said. “Eighty-five percent of acute asthma attacks are associated with viruses.”

 

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Chewing gum can speed up bowel recovery

Chewing gum is a type of confectionery traditionally made of chicle, a natural latex product, or rubber. Chewing gum is a combination of a water-insoluble phase, known as gum base, and a water-soluble phase of sweeteners, flavouring and sometimes food colouring. Just three sticks of chewing gum a day can speed up bowel recovery after colon surgery, says a new study led by Indian origin scientist.

 

The team led by Sanjay Purkayastha, B.Sc., M.R.C.S., at St. Mary’’s Hospital, London, have found that chewing gum leads to enhanced recovery of intestinal function following surgery to remove all or part of the colon.

 

“Postoperative ileus (inability of the intestines to pass contents) is regarded as an inevitable response to the trauma of abdominal surgery and is a major contributing factor to postoperative pain and discomfort associated with abdominal distension, nausea, vomiting and cramping pain,” the authors write.

 

Purkayastha and colleagues analyzed data from five trials published in or before July 2006 and involving 158 patients. In each trial, a group of patients chewed sugarless gum three times per day following surgery for a period of five to 45 minutes and were compared with patients who did not chew gum.

 

They found that patients who chewed gum took an average of .66 fewer days to pass flatus (gas) and an average of 1.10 fewer days to have a bowel movement, both signs of returning intestinal function.

 

“Postoperative length of hospital stay was assessed in four trials comprising 134 patients,” the authors write. “This was also reduced in the chewing gum group by longer than one day; however, this result was not statistically significant.

 

“In conclusion, we feel that the current evidence suggests that gum chewing following abdominal surgery offers significant benefits in reducing the time to resolution of ileus,” they added. “There is some evidence that chewing gum might help, but not enough that bowel surgery patients are routinely being advised to chew gum.”

 

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Scientists create stem cells for 10 disorders

Stem cells are cells found in most, if not all, multi-cellular organisms. They are characterized by the ability to renew themselves through mitotic cell division and differentiating into a diverse range of specialized cell types. Harvard scientists say they have created stems cells for 10 genetic disorders, which will allow researchers to watch the diseases develop in a lab dish.

 

This early step, using a new technique, could help speed up efforts to find treatments for some of the most confounding ailments, the scientists said. The new work was reported online Thursday in the journal Cell, and the researchers said they plan to make the cell lines readily available to other scientists.

 

Dr. George Daley and his colleagues at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute used ordinary skin cells and bone marrow from people with a variety of diseases, including Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and Down syndrome to produce the stem cells.

 

The new cells will allow researchers to “watch the disease progress in a dish, that is, to watch what goes right or wrong,” Doug Melton, co-director of the institute, said during a teleconference.

 

The new technique reprograms cells, giving them the chameleon-like qualities of embryonic stem cells, which can morph into all kinds of tissue, such as heart, nerve and brain. As with embryonic stem cells, the hope is to speed medical research.

 

Melton said the new disease-specific cell lines “represent a collection of degenerative diseases for which there are no good treatments and, more importantly, no good animal models for the most part in studying them.”

 

A new laboratory has been created to serve as a repository for the cells, and to distribute them to other scientists researching the diseases, Melton said. “The hope is that this will accelerate research and it will create a climate of openness,” said Daley.

 

He expects stem cell lines to be developed for many more diseases, noting, “this is just the first wave of diseases.” Other diseases for which they created stem cells are Type 1, or juvenile, diabetes; two types of muscular dystrophy, Gaucher disease and a rare genetic disorder known as the “bubble boy disease.”

 

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Facebook to blame for ‘friendship addiction’ among women

Facebook is a social networking website launched on February 4, 2004. The free-access website is privately owned and operated by Facebook, Inc. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves. Most users claim it offers an opportunity to keep in touch with friends.

 

But a leading psychologist says Facebook is driving a worrying trend. The social networking site is being blamed for ‘friendship addiction’ causing insecurity in those who use it, particularly women.

 

David Smallwood, an addictions expert from the Priory clinic in London, claims many who use Facebook become hooked on the urge to acquire more friends in an attempt to appear popular and successful.

 

He says women are more vulnerable as they get their self worth from relationships. Last year media regulator Ofcom revealed that females between 25 and 49 years of age were spending more time on the internet than men for the first time.

 

The ‘feminisation of the web’ is said to have been driven by social networking sites. Facebook has nearly 60million users with two million joining weekly.

 

Mr. Smallwood, lead therapist with the Priory’s addictions unit in north London, said that at least 10 per cent of the populations were vulnerable to ‘friendship addiction’.  He said the site is unsuitable for those recovering from drug, alcohol or shopping dependencies.

 

‘The problem with Facebook is it’s all about acquisition and this is an addictive process,’ he added. ‘I see patients who are on Facebook and my response is “Get yourself off it”.’

 

Research has shown in some countries that social networking sites can be a substitute for family life. Despite Mr Smallwood’s claims, a report said yesterday that sites such as Facebook help prevent social isolation, which contributes to mental illness at a cost of £77billion a year.

 

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Brain’s reaction to yummy food may predict weight

WASHINGTON – Drink a milkshake and the pleasure center in your brain gets a hit of happy — unless you’re overweight. It sounds counterintuitive. But scientists who watched young women savor milkshakes inside a brain scanner concluded that when the brain doesn’t sense enough gratification from food, people may overeat to compensate.

 

The small but first-of-a-kind study even could predict who would pile on pounds during the next year: Those who harbored a gene that made their brain’s yum factor even more sluggish.

 

“The more blunted your response to the milkshake taste, the more likely you are to gain weight,” said Dr. Eric Stice, a senior scientist at the Oregon Research Institute who led the work, published in Friday’s edition of the journal Science.

 

A healthy diet and plenty of exercise are the main factors in whether someone is overweight. But scientists have long known that genetics also play a major role in obesity — and one big culprit is thought to be dopamine, the brain chemical that’s key to sensing pleasure.

 

Eating can temporarily boost dopamine levels. Previous brain scans have suggested that the obese have fewer dopamine receptors in their brains than lean people. And a particular gene version, called Taq1A1, is linked to fewer dopamine receptors.

 

“This paper takes it one step farther,” said Dr. Nora Volkow of the National Institutes of Health, a dopamine specialist who has long studied the obesity link. “It takes the gene associated with greater vulnerability for obesity and asks the question why. What is it doing to the way the brain is functioning that would make a person more vulnerable to compulsively eat food and become obese?”

 

It’s “very elegant work,” she added. First, Stice’s team had to figure out how to study the brain’s immediate reactions to food. Moving inside an MRI machine skews its measurements, which ruled out letting the women slurp up the milkshakes.

 

Yale University neuroscientist Dana Small solved that problem, with a special syringe that would squirt a small amount of milkshake or, for comparison, a tasteless solution into the mouth without study participants moving. They were told when to swallow, so researchers could coordinate the scans with that small motion.

 

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Weight-Loss Surgery, No Cutting Required

Weight loss, in the context of medicine or health or physical fitness, is a reduction of the total body weight, due to a mean loss of fluid, body fat or adipose tissue and/or lean mass, namely bone mineral deposits, muscle, tendon and other connective tissue.

 

On a recent Wednesday, Karleen Perez lay unconscious on an operating table in Upper Manhattan while her surgeons and two consultants from a medical device company peered at an overhead monitor that displayed images from inside her digestive tract.

 

The surgeons, Dr. Marc Bessler and Dr. Daniel Davis, had just stapled her stomach to form a thumb-sized tube that would hold only a small amount of food. The operation resembled others done for weight loss, with one huge difference. In Ms. Perez’s case, there was no cutting. Instead, the surgeons had passed the stapler down her throat and stapled her stomach from the inside.

 

Inspecting their handiwork, Dr. Bessler said, “I don’t think you’ll get much better than that.” The operation, meant to make people feel full after eating very little, is strictly experimental. Only a few patients have tried it in this country, as part of a study paid for by Satiety Inc., which makes the staplers and hopes the Food and Drug Administration will approve them.

 

Ms. Perez, a 25-year-old graduate student in social work, was the second patient at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia to enter the study. Satiety employees advised her surgeons throughout the operation.

 

The procedure is part of a trend to make surgery less painful and invasive, to minimize risks and speed recovery. Many operations that once required big incisions are now performed through small slits, with cameras inserted to let surgeons see what they are doing on video screens.

 

Ms. Perez’s doctors took the next step: using a natural opening to avoid cutting through the abdominal wall. Dr. Bessler and other surgeons have used similar techniques to remove the appendix through the mouth, and the gallbladder through the vagina.

 

In Mexico and Europe over the past two to three years, 98 patients have had the new weight-loss surgery, named Toga (for transoral gastroplasty). On average, those who have passed the one-year mark have lost about 40 percent of their excess weight. Only time will tell whether they will be able to avoid gaining it back.

 

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Laser treatment could help kill superbugs

A laser is an electronic-optical device that emits coherent light radiation. The term “laser” is an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. A laser treatment that wipes out drug-resistant bacterial infections may one day help doctors tackle the growing problem of superbugs, British researchers said on Tuesday.

 

Laboratory experiments showed that a laser-activated dye widely used for medical diagnosis produces a number of bacteria-killing chemicals, Michael Wilson of University College London and colleagues said. It could be used for spot treatment of skin infections and save the use of infused or oral antibiotics for more serious cases, they wrote in the journal BioMed Central Microbiology.

 

Their study showed indocyanine green dye killed a wide range of bacteria including Staphyloccus aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes and Pseudomonas aeruginosa whan activated by a near-infrared laser. Methicillin-resistant Staphyloccus aureus, or MRSA, infections can range from boils to more severe infections of the bloodstream, lungs and surgical sites.

 

Most cases are associated with hospitals, nursing homes or other health care facilities. The superbug is a growing problem worldwide and can cause life-threatening and disfiguring infections and can often only be treated with expensive, intravenous antibiotics.

 

This new approach using a dye safe for humans could save lives and get people out of the hospital more quickly — and cheaply, the researchers said.

 

“The growing resistance to conventional antibiotics among organisms that infect wounds and burns makes such infections difficult to treat,” Wilson’s team wrote.

 

The treatment is promising because the activated dye targets both the bacteria’s DNA and membrane, a two-pronged attack making resistance unlikely to develop, even after repeated use, they said. The researchers said they conducted their experiments using bacteria grown in a lab so the next step is testing the laser on mice before starting human trials.

 

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Delivery Method Affects Brain Response to Baby’s Cry

Whether a child is delivered naturally or by C-section may affect the mother’s response to a baby’s cry. When my own daughter was born by cesarean section delivery, I was surprised how uninvolved I was in the process. My body was numb, and my view of the surgery was blocked by a sheet. When I finally heard a baby cry, it took a minute for me to realize that the sound belonged to my own baby.

 

That’s why I was particularly interested to read of new research showing that the method of delivery seems to influence how a mother’s brain responds to the cries of her own baby. The brains of women who have natural childbirth appear to be more responsive to the cries of their own babies, compared to the brains of women who have C-section births.

 

The finding is based on brain imaging scans conducted two to four weeks after delivery among just 12 women, half of whom had vaginal births and half of whom gave birth by C-section.

 

The study, published in The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, found that the cry of a woman’s own baby triggered significant responses in several parts of the brain related to sensory processing, empathy, arousal, motivation, reward and habit-regulation. The effect was greatest in the brains of women who had delivered vaginally compared to those women who delivered their babies by C-section.

 

Lead author Dr. James Swain of Yale University’s child study center said the mode of delivery has been associated with decreased maternal behaviors in animals and a trend for increased postpartum depression in humans. It’s estimated that about 30 percent of births in the United States are delivered by C-section, the study says.

 

It’s important to note that the study measured only short-term differences in brain patterns following childbirth. There’s no evidence that delivery method has any long-term implications on a woman’s ability to parent or bond with her child or recognize her baby’s cry.

 

Within a few hours of my own C-section, I quickly figured out the pain medication the doctor was giving me was interfering with my ability to be alert and focused on my baby. Once I quit the pain drugs, I was surprised and delighted at how distinctive and unique the cry of my own baby sounded to me.

 

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