Sunday, 30 August 2015

Midday naps associated with reduced blood pressure and fewer medications

Image result for midday nap"Although William Blake affirms that it is better to think in the morning, act at noon, eat in the evening and sleep at night, noon sleep seems to have beneficial effects," said Dr Kallistratos. "Two influential UK Prime Ministers were supporters of the midday nap. Winston Churchill said that we must sleep sometime between lunch and dinner while Margaret Thatcher didn't want to be disturbed at around 3:00 pm. According to our study they were right because midday naps seem to lower blood pressure levels and may probably also decrease the number of required antihypertensive medications."
He added: "Μidday sleep is a habit that nowadays is almost a privileged due to a nine to five working culture and intense daily routine. However the real question regarding this habit is: is it only a custom or is it also beneficial?"
The purpose of this prospective study was to assess the effect of midday sleep on blood pressure (BP) levels in hypertensive patients. The study included 386 middle aged patients (200 men and 186 women, average age 61.4 years) with arterial hypertension. The following measurements were performed in all patients: midday sleep time (in minutes), office BP, 24 hour ambulatory BP, pulse wave velocity, lifestyle habits, body mass index (BMI) and a complete echocardiographic evaluation including left atrial size. BP measurements were reported as diastolic and systolic BP.
After adjusting for other factors that could influence BP such as age, gender, BMI, smoking status, salt, alcohol, exercise and coffee, the researchers found that midday sleepers had 5% lower average 24 hour ambulatory systolic BP (6 mmHg) compared to patients who did not sleep at all midday. Their average systolic BP readings were 4% lower when they were awake (5 mmHg) and 6% lower while they slept at night (7 mmHg) than non-midday sleepers.
Dr Kallistratos said: "Although the mean BP decrease seems low, it has to be mentioned that reductions as small as 2 mmHg in systolic blood pressure can reduce the risk of cardiovascular events by up to 10%."
The researchers also found that in midday sleepers pulse wave velocity levels were 11% lower and left atrium diameter was 5% smaller. "These findings suggest that midday sleepers have less damage from high blood pressure in their arteries and heart," said Dr Kallistratos.
The duration of midday sleep was associated with the burden of arterial hypertension. Patients who slept for 60 minutes midday had 4 mmHg lower average 24 hour systolic BP readings and a 2% higher dipping status5 compared to patients who did not sleep midday. Dippers had an average of 17 minutes more midday sleep than non-dippers.
Dr Kallistratos said: "Our study shows that not only is midday sleep associated with lower blood pressure, but longer sleeps are even more beneficial. Midday sleepers had greater dips in blood pressure while sleeping at night which is associated with better health outcomes. We also found that hypertensive patients who slept at noon were under fewer antihypertensive medications compared to those who didn't sleep midday."
He concluded: "We found that midday sleep is associated with lower 24 hour blood pressure, an enhanced fall of BP in night, and less damage to the arteries and the heart. The longer the midday sleep, the lower the systolic BP levels and probably fewer drugs needed to lower BP

Chromatin Factors Pretty Much Allow Us to Live Out Of the Nuclear Suitcase

Image result for chromatinChromatin-associated factors play an important role in the epigenetic regulation of gene expression. These factors include various proteins that contribute to chemical alteration of DNA or histones, as well as those that control chromatin structure at the nucleosome level.
Extensive studies have documented chromosomal aberrations and dysregulation of chromatin factor gene expression in many types of cancer. A single defect in a chromatin factor can potentially affect the expression patterns of several hundred target genes, resulting in the disruption of multiple cellular pathways.
As further research into chromatin factors provides an increasing level of detail regarding their interactions with multiple targets, cancer epigenetics is emerging as a rapidly developing area of research. As a result, the dysregulation of chromatin factor gene expression offers attractive opportunities for the development of therapeutic agents.
The topic will be highlighted at Chromatin and Epigenetics in Cancer, an American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) conference that will be held September 24–27 in Atlanta. Cancer epigenetics has also been discussed at meetings that were more application oriented, such as CHI’s Epigenetic Inhibitor Discovery conference held earlier this year in San Diego.
“Histone modifications can alter chromatin in two ways,” says Catherine A. Musselman, Ph.D., assistant professor of biochemistry at the University of Iowa, Carver College of Medicine. “They may directly alter chromatin contacts, or they may indirectly remodel the structure.”
Direct mechanisms involve changes at histone-histone or histone-DNA contacts that affect chromatin conformation. One common modification is acetylation of lysine residues in histones, which neutralizes their positive charge and disrupts their electrostatic interactions with other proteins. Indirect effects involve chromatin remodeling cofactors, whose interaction with specifically modified histones can recruit them to certain regions of chromatin, for example, during the transcription process.
Dr. Musselman’s group studies histone lysine methylation, one of the most diverse histone modifications. It can have a variety of functional effects. “For instance, trimethylation of histone H3 at Lys4 (H3K4me3) is a marker of promoters of transcriptionally active genes,” notes Dr. Musselman. In contrast, trimethylation of lysine 27 (H3K27me3) is typically associated with gene repression.
In particular, Dr. Musselman’s research focuses on a class of proteins known as plant homeodomain  (PHD) finger proteins. PHD finger protein 1 (PHF1) is an essential component of  nuclear protein complexes like the transcriptional repressor polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2), as well as the DNA damage repair enzymes Ku70/Ku80.
“Dysregulation of PHF1 alters global H3K27me3 levels, which leads to altered gene expression levels,” explains Dr. Musselman. The exact effects are gene-dependent; however, the importance of PHF1 to the DNA damage response pathway, as well as its reported involvement in p53-mediated pathways, suggest that it has multiple roles in tumorigenesis.
  • Interactions with RNA Polymerase II

    Brian Strahl, Ph.D., a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, is addressing several intriguing issues that surround the mechanisms by which distinct chromatin structures are established and maintained, as well as how the underlying DNA is made accessible to the transcriptional machinery. Much of his research centers on the properties of the yeast transcription factor Set2 and the human equivalent, SETD2.
    “Set2/SETD2 is a histone methyltransferase I first identified as a postdoctoral fellow,” says Dr. Strahl. At the time, little was known about the role of histone methylases in chromatin function. “By tethering Set2 to gene promoters, I was able to initially show that Set2 and its methylation in yeast cells had the ability to turn off transcription,” he adds.
    Although Set2 has been extensively studied in yeast, the role of SETD2 in humans is less clear. Like Set2, SETD2 appears to associate with RNA polymerase II during transcription to trimethylate the lysine-36 residue in histone H3 (H3K36me3). This process is a key factor in the response to double-stranded breaks (DSBs) in DNA, a phenomenon observed in multiple types of cancer. SETD2 is one of the most frequently mutated proteins in cancer. “The frequency of mutation is especially high in bladder, breast, gliomas and most significantly, kidney cells,” explains Dr. Strahl.
    The question of how RNA polymerase II senses and responds to DNA damage in cancer remains unanswered. One possibility is that it pauses at the site of DSBs. “At that point,” notes Dr. Strahl, “repair machinery coupled with the polymerase, along with DNA damage response machinery, would then take action.” Future research in Dr. Strahl’s laboratory will explore the question of how SETD2 loss of function may result in inappropriately repaired DNA and genomic instability—a characteristic of many cancer types.
  • Jumonji Family of Demethylases

    Histone methylation of lysine and arginine residues, especially trimethylation, was long considered to be irreversible. However, recent research has shown that the “erasing” of histone methyl marks by a group of demethylase enzymes also plays a significant role in epigenetic regulation of gene transcription.
    Kristian Helin, Ph.D., director and professor at the Biotech Research & Innovation Centre (BRIC), University of Copenhagen, studies a class of demethylases known as Jumonji (JmjC) proteins. “JmjC-containing histone demethylases can reverse the effect of histone methyltransferases, but in general they do not appear to be regulators of transcription,” says Dr. Helin. Instead, these proteins stabilize the transcriptional complexes formed by transcription factors and other proteins involved in cell signaling pathways.
    One member of the JmjC family, UTX, is a demethylase specific to H3K27me3/me2 modifications. In vivo, UTX cooperates with the histone methyltransferase MLL4; these proteins are part of a complex that act as a transcriptional activator. Mutations in the gene encoding UTX are associated with “many different types of cancer including renal cell carcinomas, leukemia, and other hematopoietic cancers,” according to Dr. Helin.
    Future research in Dr. Helin’s group will use genetically engineered mouse models to assess the roles of specific histone-modifying enzymes in cancer. The goal, declares Dr. Helin, is “elucidation of how these enzymes contribute to normal proliferation and development, and how their deregulation leads to cancer.”
  • Inhibitors of Jumonji Enzyme Activity

    Click Image To Enlarge +
    At the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, researchers focus on the role of Jumonji histone demethylases in cancer. This image, prepared by Juan Bayo-Fina, Ph.D., depicts various means by which histone epigenetic marks may be added or removed. [Image courtesy of the Martinez Lab]
    JmjC demethylases also constitute the primary area of research for Elisabeth D. Martinez, Ph.D., an assistant professor of pharmacology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. “In cancer,” says Dr. Martinez, “the expression of some histone demethylases is highly increased, and this hyperactivity leads to aberrant gene expression and defects in the normal regulation of growth pathways.”
    Dr. Martinez is investigating the therapeutic potential of a small molecule drug candidate known as JIB-04. “In biochemical assays using recombinant Jumonji enzymes, JIB-04 inhibits their histone demethylase activity,” explains Dr. Martinez. Her studies also showed that JIB-04 inhibited histone demethylase activity on H3K9me3 in lysates of cancer cells but not in patient-matched normal cells.
    While further studies will provide mechanistic details, Dr. Martinez suggests that “JIB-04 blocks tumor growth and prolongs survival by reprogramming the tumor’s transcriptional profile,” and that the process is mediated, in part, by the drug’s effects on Jumonji demethylase activity.
    Other researchers have studied different classes of histone demethylases inhibitors, including alpha-ketoglutarate analogs. Compared to these compounds, however, JIB-04 is cell-permeable and has better efficacy in the mouse models tested. “In addition, data to date demonstrate that it is markedly more specific than alpha-ketoglutarate analogs and inhibits Jumonji demethylases but not other cellular alpha-ketoglutarate–dependent enzymes,” observes Dr. Martinez.
  • Clinical Trials

    Several companies are targeting histone modification pathways in efforts to bring new drugs to the market for cancer therapy. One such company is Cambridge-based Constellation Pharmaceuticals. The company recently announced the initiation of a Phase I trial of a compound known as CPI-1205, which targets pathways mediated by the protein Enhancer of Zeste Homolog 2 (EZH2).
    “EZH2 functions as the catalytic component of the multisubunit complex PRC2,” says Robert Sims, executive director of biology at Constellation. “This complex functions in the maintenance of gene silencing, in part due to the ability of EZH2 to methylate H3K27.”
    Sims explains that mutations in the EZH2 gene that alter its substrate specificity have been associated with several non-Hodgkin lymphoma subtypes (including diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and follicular lymphoma) and melanoma. He adds that “CPI-1205 inhibits the EZH2 methyltransferase activity, and thus impedes EZH2’s potential to repress gene expression in lymphoma.”
    Constellation is also evaluating other inhibitors, including one that targets the bromodomain and extra-C terminal domain (BET) family of chromatin adaptors. These proteins “bridge” transcriptional coactivators to acetylated histones during a late stage of the transcription cycle, typically at transcriptional pausing of RNA polymerase II. Dysregulation of BET gene expression is linked to NUT midline carcinoma, a rare, aggressive epithelial cancer characterized by a chromosomal translocation in the nuclear protein in testis (NUT) gene.
    “Many additional cancers utilize BET proteins to drive oncogenic gene expression, such as MYC, MYB, and BCL-2,” notes Sims. These cancers include leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and neuroblastoma.
    Constellation is actively pursuing research in other chromatin-modifying pathways, including reversible lysine methylation and acetylation. “This includes all aspects of these signaling pathways—writing, erasing, and reading,” asserts Sims. He also indicates that the company is exploring other aspects of chromatin structure and function, with an emphasis on modulating gene regulatory circuits.
  • How termite mounds ‘breathe’

    Image result for termite moundsFor decades, scientists have marveled at the towering mounds some termites construct and wondered how they work. Although it’s now widely believed the 1- to 2-meter-high structures (seen above) help with ventilation—exchanging stale air for fresh in the insect’s hidden nest—the mechanics behind such a system have remained a puzzle. Now, by using thermal imagery and installing tiny air-flow sensors in about two dozen termite (Odontotermes obesus) mounds, scientists think they have solved the mystery. Their investigation revealed that the mounds act like an “external lung,” harnessing the change in temperature as day becomes night to drive ventilation. Here’s how it works: Inside the hill is a large central chimney connected to a system of conduits located in the mound’s thin, flutelike buttresses. During the day, the air in the thin buttresses warms more quickly than the air in the insulated chimney. As a result, the warm air rises, whereas the cooler, chimney air sinks—creating a closed convection cell that drives circulation, not external pressure from wind as had been hypothesized. At night, however, the ventilation system reverses, as the air in the buttresses cools quickly, falling to a temperature below that of the central chimney. The reversal in air flow, in turn, expels the carbon dioxide–rich air—a result of the termites’ metabolism—that builds up in the subterranean nest over the course of the day, the researchers report online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Although the scientists only examined one termite species, the ventilation system is likely the same in others with similar mounds. Such insight could inspire developments in passive architecture, which seeks to eliminate the need for active heating and cooling systems in buildings using strategies such as natural ventilation and efficient insulation, the scientists say

    6 Surprising Fresh Foods You Should Not Refrigerate After Opening

    Most of us consumers err on the side of caution when it comes to reading food labels, as we ask ourselves: to refrigerate or not to refrigerate? We tend to succumb to the bold fine print that reads “refrigerate after opening” on labels, and usually proceed to place our food in the fridge, inadvertently making our food spoil faster. The most common food storage woes can now be laid to rest with a list of six foods that should never be refrigerated, despite the refrigerate label.

    1. Alcohol

    Image result for AlcoholVodka and gin are hard liquors commonly stored in the freezer, but most hard liquors contain a freezing point. This is actually a much lower temperature than our household freezers can ever reach. Both vodka and gin are meant to have some water mixed with them, which is usually in the form of melted ice.
    “Distilled spirits don’t go bad; they fade,” wrote Glenn Jeffers, a Chicago Tribune staff reporter. Unopened bottles of hard liquor can last indefinitely, unless they are stored in a cedar chest, close to mothballs, or near a direct heat source. An opened bottle can last anywhere from six to eight months. “For the average layperson, eight months to maybe a year,” said Ethan Kelley, head spirit sommelier and beverage director for the Brandy Library, a bar-lounge in New York City’s Tribeca neighborhood, to The Kitchn.

    2. Avocado

    Image result for AvocadoMost of the time when we buy avocados, they're almost rock-hard. This means they need a considerable amount of time to ripen properly to develop a good taste. Immediately placing an avocado in the fridge will stop it from ripening, similar to bananas. As a rule of thumb, unripe, firm, or green fruit can take four to five days to ripen at room temperature — approximately 65-75 degrees F. Avoid direct sunlight, too — says Avocadocentral.com, unless the room conditions exceed that range.
    Store-bought ripe avocados should be sprinkled with lemon or lime juice, or another acidic agent. This should be followed by placing it in an air-tight container, or tightly covered clear plastic wrap. The fruit can be stored in the fridge for a day.

    3. Fresh herbs

    Image result for Fresh herbsIt’s best to avoid refrigerating fresh herbs unless they are wrapped up tightly, or in an air-tight container. Like coffee, fresh herbs absorb the smells around them, which makes it unlikely that they will return to their original flavor, and instead go dry. Ger-Nis International, a company specialized in fresh, sustainable, organic and fair-trade agricultural products, suggests using herbs quickly and storing them at a room temperature, especially if they were bought from the farmer’s market. This means they most likely have not been cooled, so putting them in the fridge will shock them. Freshly picked herbs should be placed in a glass of water. This gives them a lifespan of cut flowers in water.

    4. Hot sauce

    Image result for Hot sauceWhile it is common practice to refrigerate hot sauce to generally maintain “good flavor quality for a few months after the date if refrigerated,” according to Frank’s RedHot, it is not necessary if you prefer it at room temperature. It has a very acidic vinegar-based environment, which is a preservative. Hot sauce can live in the pantry for up to three years.

     

     

    5. Melon

    Image result for MelonIt’s advised to store any melon fruit in the refrigerator once it has been cut open, but until then, it’s best to store it at room temperature. Keeping melon out in room temperature can help it keep the antioxidant levels intact. Fresh Direct suggests storing slightly under-ripe melons in a pierced paper bag at room temperature for a few days. Moreover, adding an apple to the bag will make the fruit riper. A ripe melon will produce a delicate fragrance from the blossom end, which then indicates it can be stored in the refrigerator.

     

    6. Tomatoes

    Image result for TomatoesThis food should not be put in the refrigerator immediately after purchase. If they were bought at a grocery store, chances are they were not ripe to begin with, which means the ripening process will stop. Tomatoes that are home-grown or picked up at a local farmer’s market will become tasteless if placed in the fridge due to a change in chemical structure. A 2013 study published in the journal Food Chemistry said refrigerating a tomato affects the smell and texture and makes it lose its characteristic grassy fragrance, leading the flesh to become grainy. For a fresh taste, store a tomato in a cool place that is not necessarily dark

    How Blink Rate, Pupil Dilation Give Insight To Honesty And Attraction

    Image result for How Blink Rate, Pupil Dilation Give Insight To Honesty And AttractionIt takes seven seconds. You walk in, smile, shake hands. In those brief moments of nonverbal communication, experts say, most people form their first impression. And what we don’t express verbally, we communicate with the most powerful type of body language: our eyes. So, try as we might to say what we feel, they’ll give us away.
    “The eyes, chico. They never lie.” If you’re a Scarface fan you’ll recognize that line from when Tony Montana tells his best friend Manny he’s sure his boss’s wife Elvira likes him.
    He was right. Our eyes often reveal more about our thoughts and feelings than our words. They’re the reason we maintain eye contact in interviews to exude confidence, or why we’re told as children not to stare too long at the family dog — prolonged staring is a form of intimidation and shows dominance. Both examples are basic eye language most people are aware of and consciously control. So, what can we learn about unconscious expressions from observing a person’s eyes?

    When Someone's Lying

    Common knowledge would have you believe people avert their eyes when lying. Worldwide, at least, that’s the consensus. A 2010 report on two worldwide studies, published in the Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology, found one common belief across 75 countries and 43 different languages: liars avert gaze. The authors, however, disagreed, citing various studies that showed humans are sensitive to gaze direction from birth.
    Early on, mother-infant interaction is based on eye contact, so when a mother breaks the mutual regard, infants come to associate it with disapproval, “and soon thereafter, they are inferring deceit from gaze aversion. Although they often disbelieve fishy-looking truth tellers, perceivers rarely learn from their mistakes,” the authors wrote. In fact, they added, experiments have shown Westerners only accurately detect lying 54 percent of the time, so gaze aversion may not be a reliable detection method.
    Blake Eastman, body language expert and founder of The Nonverbal Group, agrees you can’t use breaking eye contact as a baseline for making an assumption.
    "It could be that they looked away because they’re uncomfortable with what’s happening," he said. "It could be embarrassment, it could be shame, [maybe] the person suffers from high social anxiety. There isn’t any concrete study that shows breaking eye contact indicates lying."
    reading eyesPhoto courtesy of Shutterstock
    Instead, research shows adults make eye contact an average 30 to 60 percent of the time during conversation, according to communications-analytics company Quantified Impressions, The Wall Street Journal reported. In one-on-one conversations, for example, it’s standard to hold eye contact for seven to 10 seconds, Ben Decker, chief executive officer of Decker Communications, a San Francisco-based training and consulting firm, told WSJ. So, if a person breaks eye contact, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s untrustworthy. 
    However, maintaining an unusually strong amount of eye contact may be a red flag. In the true nature of a liar, he will look for ways to deceive, and that includes being hyperaware of not breaking eye contact, according to Eastman, since it’s commonly considered a “giveaway.”
    Another indication of lying may be decreased blink rate resulting from cognitive overload, which is the theory that when a person becomes overwhelmed with thinking (or creating a lie), his blink rate dramatically decreases. However, like gaze aversion or unusually strong eye contact, decreased blink rate, too, varies for each individual.
    “You’re looking for shifts in someone’s behavior,” Eastman said, explaining there are different drugs, for example, that may even affect blink rate. “If I told you right now, I want you to walk into that room and make up a story that’s completely untrue, that’s going to create a lot of cognitive overload. But when people lie they don’t create stuff out of thin air,” Eastman said. Instead, they use memories, what they know, so it’s not completely fabricated, and that in turn may not cause as much cognitive overload and decreased blink rate.
    “It is almost impossible, to say if a person does X, it means they’re lying. … It’s never that simple. … Lie detection is the single most hardest thing to apply.”

    When Someone's Attracted To You

    Dating experts will tell you maintaining strong eye contact shows interest. We’d otherwise look away if we didn’t want to learn about the person, right? So, it’s the genuine interest that causes us to fix our eyes on the subject; we become excited, and in the process, our pupils dilate.
    According to Eastman, there is a strong correlation between arousal and specific eye movements like dilation and blink rate. Our eyes naturally dilate to allow more light in, but dilation also occurs in response to cognitive and emotional events. So when we’re interested or in any way emotionally stimulated — positively or negatively — in what we’re looking at, our pupils dilate.
    In fact, men tend to be attracted to women with larger pupils. So much so that in Italy, over five centuries ago, women used Belladonna plant extract to dilate their pupils in an effort to appear more attractive, Scientific American reported.
    Increased blink rate, in some cases, is another strong indication we’re lusting after a person. For some people, blink rate spikes when they’re emotionally excited, Eastman explains, so consistent blinking (more than the average 10 blinks per minute) may be another sign a person’s attracted to you.

    Reading The Heart 

    As informative as pupil dilation, blink rate, gaze aversion, and unusually prolonged eye contact can be, Eastman says the muscles around the eyes communicate the strongest message because they dictate emotion.
    Without them, squinting wouldn’t convey confusion. Raising eyebrows wouldn’t demonstrate shock. Lingerie models wouldn’t achieve a seductive look.
    But most importantly, you wouldn’t own certain facial expressions. So while first impressions matter, and we’d like to know for sure if someone’s lying, or if our coworker is attracted to us, we may only be able to accurately read the eyes of those we love.

    Saturday, 29 August 2015

    Yet Another Disease Is Attacking Tasmanian Devils

    Image result for Yet Another Disease Is Attacking Tasmanian DevilsTasmanian devils (Sarcophilus harrisii) just can’t catch a break. The infamous Australian carnivores have already been nearly wiped out by an incurable communicable cancer called devil facial tumor disease (DFTD), which first appeared in 1996 and has since killed as much as 90 percent of the entire species. As if that weren’t bad enough—and it’s pretty awful—now we have word that another disease has appeared on the horizon.
    This time around it’s a bacterial infection called leptospirosis, which is often fatal in both humans and wildlife if left untreated. Leptospirosis—caused by a genus of spiral-shaped bacteria called Leptospira—has been seen in Australia before but never in Tasmanian devils. Early symptoms of the infection (which vary by species of bacteria and host) include headaches and nausea. Later, much more severe symptoms can include bleeding in the lungs and meningitis. The infection can usually be knocked out by antibiotics, although it can leave behind permanent liver or kidney damage.
    The presence of the bacteria in the marsupials was uncovered by Sarah Wynwood, a PhD student at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, who earlier this year developed the first new test to diagnose the bacteria in more than a century.
    A native of Tasmania, Wynwood recently conducted leptospirosis tests on her state’s iconic devils—for which she says she has “a soft spot”—to see if any factors besides DFTD may be contributing to their decline. She tested samples from 83 animals and, using multiple testing methodologies, found leptospirosis antibodies in 11 of them.
    Not only did she find the bacteria, she discovered a new strain that had never before been observed.
    Wynwood says the devil tissue samples came from a wide range of locations, so the bacteria did not appear to be limited to any specific region or location.
    The discovery supports earlier theories that a co-infection could be weakening Tasmanian devils’ ability to fend off the deadly cancer. So far, however, there’s no obvious link between DFTD and the Leptospira pathogen, but Wynwood says that’s the focus of the next phase of her research.
    Will this new bacterial research actually yield another possible avenue toward protecting Tasmanian devils before DFTD wipes them all out? It’s too early to say, but at this stage any hope or new research path is all we’ve got

    New research shows being diagnosed with ADHD in adolescence can still cause problems related to brain volume and memory into adulthood

    Image result for adhdAdolescents diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) seem to have different brain structures, which may be why they don’t perform as well on memory tests, finds a new study published in the journal European Child Adolescent Psychiatry. More importantly, these differences may be proof ADHD doesn't go away.
    Some researchers are convinced ADHD goes away once a child's brain develops, with current estimates suggesting that between 10 to 50 percent of children still have ADHD in adulthood. But researchers from the University of Cambridge and Oulu found these studies often base their conclusions on “interview-based assessments,” not so much brain structure and function. So they decided to follow-up with data previously collected for the Northern Finland Birth Cohort in 1986, where thousands of children born in 1986 were studied into adulthood.
    Researchers used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to observe brain and memory function among 49 adolescents diagnosed with ADHD at age 16 (now in their early 20s); 34 young adults served as the control. They found that those with ADHD had reduced gray matter in the caudate nucleus, a part of the brain associated with memory and cognitive function. Researchers then gave the adults with ADHD a memory test to see if this deficit made a difference.
    The results showed that the group diagnosed with ADHD were still experiencing problems "in terms of reduced brain volume and poorer memory function" in their 20s. As far as memory was concerned, one-third of adults with ADHD failed the memory test compared to less than one in 20 of the control group, researchers said. Even if those with ADHD passed their test, however, it was still an average six percent lower than other participants.
    Researchers believe it’s the caudate nucleus influencing a person’s memory.
    “In the controls, when the test got harder, the caudate nucleus went up a gear in its activity, and this is likely to have helped solve the memory problems,” study author Dr. Graham Murray said in statement. “But in the group with adolescent ADHD, this region of the brain is smaller and doesn’t seem to be able to respond to increasing memory demands with the results that memory performance suffers.”
    A study such as this one could help provide better access to treatment for those who suffer with ADHD. The study was conducted in Finland, where medication is not often used to treat the condition, hence why only one of the 49 participants was on medication.
    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that approximately 11 percent of children ages 6 to 17 have been diagnosed with ADHD, and year after year the number continues to rise. Measures of the brain, as well as memory function, may be key to understanding the condition.
    Murray concluded: "The next step in our research will be to examine whether these differences in brain structure and memory function are linked to difficulties in everyday life, and, crucially, see if they respond to treatment

    Changing the way we think about addiction

    Image result for Changing the way we think about addictionDr Gabor Maté, a physician who studies and treats addiction in Vancouver, has developed a controversial theory after many years of working in the city's Downtown Eastside—one of the most concentrated areas of drug use in North America.
    Maté plays down the contribution of genetic factors and suggests that addiction goes back to the pain that many people experience in childhood.
    'Genes do not cause addictions. At the very most, they will make somebody more susceptible to them,' he says.
    'But we know, both from animal studies and from human experience, that even creatures with the genetic predispositions for addiction will not be addicted if they are brought up in a proper environment.
    'In the 12 years of work in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, working with people heavily addicted to heroin, cocaine, crystal meth and other drugs, I never met a single female patient over a 12-year period who had not been sexually abused as a child.
    'I also never met a single male who had not suffered either sexual or other forms of abuse or neglect and abandonment—not once in 12 years.'
    According to Maté, large-scale studies show degree of addiction strictly correlates to the degree of trauma people experienced in childhood.
    Maté references the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) study, which looked at 17,000 mostly middle-class Americans.
    'Childhood adversity meant physical, sexual or emotional abuse, the death of a parent, a parent being addicted, a parent being mentally ill, a parent being jailed, violence in the family or a divorce,' says Maté.
    The study found that for each adverse experience, the risk of addiction increased exponentially.
    'People use drugs to escape the pain that is ingrained in them by their childhood experiences. They use the drugs to escape from the sense of discomfort with the self that is a necessary and unavoidable outcome with childhood adversity,' he says.
    According to Maté, most doctors today fail to recognise how the brain itself is shaped by early experiences. Without a set of nurturing, connected and emotionally available adults in our childhood, our brain cannot develop optimally, he says.
    'So what you have in the case of adversity is emotional pain, poor self-esteem, shame and alienation, and disturbed brain circuits, and this is the setup for addiction.'     

    Although Maté is supporter of the popular 12-step drug treatment program used in Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous, he disagrees with the idea that people should accept they are drug addicts 'by nature'.
    'Nobody is a drug addict by nature,' he says.
    'If you look, for example, at any population, addiction shows up, under certain circumstances, and those same populations don't have addiction when those circumstances are different.'
    Of course, many young people try drugs not because of pain or trauma, but rather curiosity or peer pressure.
    'If you look at the research, it's in the context of the peer group that most people are introduced to drugs. But being introduced to drugs and becoming an addict are two separate questions,' says Maté.
    'I mean, if alcohol was addictive, then anybody who drank would get addicted, but most people don't. It's the same with food, same with sex, same with gambling, same with shopping, same with heroin.
    'What causes addiction is if there is a susceptible brain there.'
    Maté explains that narcotics serve as a temporary soothing mechanism for psychic pain because they work in much the same way as pain relief.
    'Cocaine is a local anaesthetic, it is used that way in medicine. Alcohol, as you know, is an analgesic. Cannabis, as you know, is an analgesic, it's used that way in medicine.
    'Not just the drugs, by the way, but all the behaviours of addiction … they distract you from your emotional pain and discomfort.'
    As a result, Maté has coined his own mantra: 'The first question is not why the addiction but why the pain?'
    It's a question Maté often asks his clients at the Portland Hotel, a residence, resource centre and harm reduction clinic for drug addicts in Downtown Eastside.
    He focuses on improving the lives of addicts by examining the how and why of their addictions.
    'First of all we have to see the drug addict as ourselves,' he says.
    'The only difference between myself and my clients in the Downtown Eastside is they suffered more than I did, hence their desperation for soothing and pain relief was greater than mine.'
    Maté believes that society should take a less judgmental approach to the issue of illicit drug use and recognise that our judgement of drug addicts reflects a refusal to deal with certain parts of ourselves.
    'If we understood that, we'd have a completely different social approach,' he says.
    'We would put the funds and the resources into rehabilitating people, into helping them, and we would also make sure that young families get the proper support.'
    According to Maté, the 'war on drugs' is a misnomer.
    'You can't make a war on inanimate objects. There's a war on drug addicts is what there is.'
    'The jails in the United States and Canada, I would guess in Australia as well, are full of people who suffered trauma in early childhood, began to use drugs to soothe their pain, then began to engage in criminal activity only because the drugs are illegal and therefore expensive.
    'What we are actually doing is stressing large numbers of people, which makes it more sure that they are going to stay addicted, because we know that stress is the biggest factor in causing addictive relapse.'
    According to Maté, there is so much more we could be doing to combat drug addiction, and at no extra cost.
    'We would have to have a complete shift of perspective,' he says.
    'All we have to do is consult science and our experience and our hearts, and we know what to do.'

    How Forgiveness Benefits Your Health

    Image result for How Forgiveness Benefits Your HealthResearch has shown time and time again that our minds and bodies are linked: stress and depression can breed fatigue, while a positive outlook on life can provide us with an increased amount of energy. Willpower and determination can make us run faster and longer.
    A new study expounds upon the link between mind and body; it shows that holding a grudge may not weigh only on your mind but also upon your physical person. Published in Social Psychological & Personality Science, the research states that the act of forgiveness — pardoning someone who has done you wrong — can not only metaphorically lift a burden off your shoulders, but it can do so physically, as well.
    The authors of the study, from Erasmus University’s Rotterdam School of Management in the Netherlands, had 46 undergraduate students participate in two experiments. The first involved half of the students writing about “a time when they were seriously offended by another person, and ultimately forgave them.” The other half of students were asked to write about a similar incident, but one in which they never forgave the person and continued to view them negatively.
    After each writing exercise, the students in both groups walked to a certain point in a nearby hill and were asked to estimate its slant. Interestingly, those who had written about their experience of forgiving someone estimated the hill to be less steep than those who were still thinking about their negative feelings towards someone they hadn’t forgiven.

    Weighed Down By Grudges

    In the second experiment, 160 undergraduate students from Erasmus University and National University of Singapore were divided into three groups. The first wrote about an experience in which they were harmed by another person but forgave them; the second wrote about a similar situation but one in which they didn’t forgive the person; and the third wrote about a “recent interpersonal interaction” that didn’t necessarily involve harming or forgiveness. They were then tested in an “ostensible physical fitness task,” in which they were measured by the height of their jumps. The researchers found that the students who had written about forgiveness jumped higher on average than those who focused on the negative feelings involved with not forgiving someone. However, the jumping difference between those who forgave and those who simply wrote about a neutral interpersonal interaction was minimal: proving that it was the act of holding a grudge that was “weighing” people down.
    “The benefits of forgiveness may go beyond the constructive consequences that have been established in the psychological and health domains,” the researchers write. “Our research shows that forgivers perceive a less daunting world, and perform better on challenging physical tasks.”
    More research will need to be completed before researchers fully understand what causes lack of forgiveness to be a burden of sorts, or a limitation holding someone back. But it might have something to do with power, the authors point out: “Victims who are unable to reconcile with their offenders often feel a sense of powerlessness,” they write. Forgiving, on the other hand, provides a person with a greater sense of self-worth and power, which is often manifested into enhanced physical ability. Another possibility is that holding a grudge “can increase rumination, which may decrease the availability of cognitive resources such as glucose that can otherwise be used to cope with physical challenges such as jumping or climbing a hill.”
    According to the Mayo Clinic, forgiveness brings with it plenty of health benefits, including improved relationships, decreased anxiety and stress, lower blood pressure, a lowered risk of depression, and stronger immune and heart health. Letting go of negative emotions can often have a remarkable impact on the body.
    “A state of unforgiveness is like carrying a heavy burden — a burden that victims bring with them when they navigate the physical world,” the authors write. “Forgiveness can lighten this burden.”

    3D-Printed 'Fish Bots' Made With Platinum Nanoparticles Can Swim Through Blood To Remove Toxins

    Image result for 3D-Printed 'Fish Bots' Made With Platinum Nanoparticles Can Swim Through Blood To Remove ToxinsIn the future, robots will be handling a lot of things. They’ll be driving us places, serving us drinks, cutting our lawn, and more. The world of medicine is not immune to the charm of robots either, and soon enough they’ll be handling surgeries, prescribing you with medications and swimming through your bloodstream depositing drugs where they’re needed. Wait, what? That’s right, some day in our bright future, you’ll have 3D-printed microfish swimming around your bloodstream.
    Smaller than the width of a human hair — 120 microns long by 30 microns thick — these little fish will one day find themselves coursing through your veins, removing toxins and delivering drugs to certain parts of the body. In a study published in Advanced Materials, researchers showed that the little "microfish" are made with platinum nanoparticles in their tails, which when combined with hydrogen peroxide, causes the tails to move. Iron oxide particles in their heads allow the fish to magnetically steer themselves through your bloodstream.
    "We have developed an entirely new method to engineer nature-inspired microscopic swimmers that have complex geometric structures and are smaller than the width of a human hair," said the co-first author Wei Zhu, a nanoengineering Ph.D. student at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego, in a press release. "With this method, we can easily integrate different functions inside these tiny robotic swimmers for a broad spectrum of applications."
    The nature-inspired part of that quote is rather interesting. Zhu and his team created the fishes first but are also working on other sea creatures, such as sharks and sting rays. They didn’t say what the purpose of the different creatures would be, but one would guess they could all serve different functions or just be switched for patient preference.
    To prove that the fish are good at cleaning up toxins, the researchers put toxin-neutralizing nanoparticles — specifically polydiacetylene (PDA) nanoparticles, which capture harmful pore-forming toxins such as the ones found in bee venom — throughout the bodies of the fish. The powerful swimming of the fish in solution displayed their ability to clean up toxins. When the PDA nanoparticles combine with toxin molecules, they glow bright red. This allowed the researchers to identify how well their fish were doing at cleaning up those toxins, based on the intensity of the red glow.
    The only disappointing part of the whole “the future will be full of robots” dialogue is that the future is still a ways away. These microfish won’t be swimming in your bloodstream anytime soon, so don’t hold your breath.

    Want To Sharpen Your Sense Of Touch? Try 6 Hours Of Meditation

    Image result for Want To Sharpen Your Sense Of Touch? Try 6 Hours Of MeditationMeditation might not only help you relax, it could boost your sense of touch, according to a new study in Scientific Reports.
    Recruiting the help of 20 Zen scholars, the study authors found that a certain type of meditation technique, performed over the course of three days, was able to increase a person’s perception to stimuli about as well as long-term training or physical stimulation.
    In likely one of the quietest experiments ever to take place, the researchers followed the scholars to a four-day long Zen retreat held in Germany, where they would meditate for eight hours straight each day in complete silence. Half of the scholars, however, would specifically engage in “focused attention meditation” for two of those hours for three days, being told by the researchers to become “completely aware of the spontaneously arising sensory perception in their right index finger.” The other half simply meditated as usual, using a technique known as open monitoring meditation.
    Before their meditation started, as well as on the third and fourth day of the retreat, the scholars were subjected to a series of tests aimed at measuring their tactile performance. While they were blinded, the scholars’ right index finger (along with a nearby finger and corresponding finger on the left hand) was touched by a device with two pointed ends set apart by an adjustable distance. The shorter the distance between the points when the scholar could reliably (over 50 percent of the time) tell that they were being poked by two different points, the better their perception of touch. Another blinded experiment measured their ability to accurately perceive the location of an object touching them.
    Lo and behold, those who had focused on their right hand fingers the entire weekend performed better on the two-point discrimination test both on the third day and the fourth, when the scholars were instructed to revert back to their ordinary meditation technique. In one participant’s case, he was able to accurately report two points touching him when they were 1.68 millimeters apart on the first day, and at 1.27 millimeters by the third day.
    “Our data show that focused attention meditation on a particular body part — in this case the right index finger — significantly enhanced tactile acuity but not localization performance. In addition, open monitoring meditation resulted in no changes at all,” wrote the authors. “These data indicate that merely being aware without external stimulation or training can drive highly specific changes in tactile perception.”
    The level of improvement they noticed was fairly equivalent to that of long-term training or stimulation, as can be seen with visually impaired individuals who become reliant on their sense of touch. It was in some respects even better, since it’s been previously observed that such training can improve touch perception but worsen our ability to accurately locate where we’re being touched.
    “Taken together, our findings indicate that the framework of neuroplastic processes induced by external training and stimulation needs to be extended to incorporate the observation that intrinsic brain activity created by mental states without external events can alter perception and behavior in similar ways,” the authors concluded.
    While the authors’ findings are undoubtedly fascinating, it should be noted that their study subjects are particularly unique. The average length of meditation experience shared by the scholars was a whopping 11 years, and they spent an average of four hours a week meditating.
    Still, you could do a lot worse for a parlor trick.

    Rising Sea Levels More Dangerous Than Thought

    Image result for Rising Sea Levels More Dangerous Than ThoughtThe consequences of global sea level rise could be even scarier than the worst-case scenarios predicted by the dominant climate models, which don't fully account for the fast breakup of ice sheets and glaciers, NASA scientists said today (Aug. 26) at a press briefing.
    What's more, sea level rise is already occurring. The open question, NASA scientists say, is just how quickly the seas will rise in the future.
    Rising seas
    The current warming of the seas and the associated expansion of their waters account for about one-third of sea level rise around the world.
    "When heat goes under the ocean, it expands just like mercury in a thermometer," Steve Nerem, lead scientist for NASA's Sea Level Change Team at the University of Colorado in Boulder, said in the press briefing.
    The remaining two-thirds of sea level rise is occurring as a result of melting from ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica and mountain glaciers, Nerem said.
    Data collected by a cadre of NASA satellites—which change position in relation to one other as water and ice on the planet realign and affect gravity's tug—reveal that the ocean's mass is increasing. This increase translates to a global sea level rise of about 1.9 millimeters (0.07 inches) per year, Nerem said.
    Unpredictable pace
    But the speed of sea level rise is an open question.
    "Ice sheets are contributing to sea level rise sooner, and more than anticipated," said Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at the University of California, Irvine, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
    That's because people have never seen the collapse of a huge ice sheet and therefore don't have good models of the effects, Rignot said.
    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international organization created by the United Nations that produces climate change models, has predicted that sea levels could rise as much as 21 feet (6.4 meters) in the next century if global warming continues unabated.

    But even that worst-case scenario may not capture the risk, Rignot said. That's because the IPCC models only take into account temperature changes at the surface of glaciers, but not the rapid melting that occurs when glaciers calve and break up into the ocean, Rignot said.
    In addition, much of glaciers' melting occurs at deep, undersea ice canyons. Warmer water is salter and therefore heavier. That means it sinks into the deeper layers of the ocean, and the contrast between this warm water and the undersea ice canyons contributes an unknown but substantial amount of sea level rise, said Josh Willis, an oceanographer at JPL in Pasadena, California.
    When the massive Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland calved earlier this summer, it moved 4.6 square miles (12 square kilometers) of ice in one day, Rignot said. [See Photos of Greenland's Melting Glaciers]
    If the Jakobshavn glacier had melted completely, "it contains enough ice to raise global sea level by half a meter — just this one glacier in Greenland," Rignot said. If all the land ice on the planet were to melt, it would raise sea levels about 197 feet (60 m), he added.
    Some of the melting that has already occurred is likely irreversible, and could take hundreds of years to reverse, Rignot said.
    American impact
    While global sea levels have risen about 2.75 inches (7 centimeters) over the past 22 years, the west coast of the United States has not seen much of a rise in ocean levels. That's largely because of a long-time-scale weather pattern called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which is masking the global effect. That, however, could reverse in the coming years, Willis said.
    "In the long run, we expect the sea levels on the west coast to catch up to global mean and even exceed the global mean," Willis said.
    Florida is also particularly vulnerable to sea level rise because its porous soil allows more seawater intrusion than does the soil in other coastal areas, Willis said

    The Link Between Overthinking, Creativity, And A Neurotic Personality, According To Science

    Image result for The Link Between Overthinking, Creativity, And A Neurotic Personality, According To ScienceNeurotic behavior is something we’ve all had to deal with at one point or another. Whether it’s our own behavior, a family member, or a friend, we know neurotics as worriers — dwelling on problems and having frequent negative thoughts.
    Many creative geniuses, however, struggled with neuroticism. A new opinion paper published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences presents a new hypothesis for why creativity and neurotic unhappiness often go hand-in-hand. The psychologists suggest that the same area of the brain responsible for self-generated thought is also highly active in neuroticism.
    The most well-known explanation for why people are neurotic came from the British psychologist Jeffery Gray, who suggested that neurotic individuals have a heightened sense of threat. He proposed this after observing how antianxiety drugs reduced the sensitivity of rodents to punishment cues and how they helped psychiatric patients relax.
    "Gray had a useful and logical theory, but the problem is that it doesn't account for the full spectrum of neuroticism — it's pretty difficult to explain neuroticism in terms of magnified threat perception because high scorers often feel unhappy in situations where there is no threat at all," said paper lead author Adam Perkins, a personality researcher at King's College London, in a press release. "The second problem is, there's literature showing neuroticism scores are positively correlated with creativity; and so why should having a magnified view of threat objects make you good at coming up with new ideas?"
    Perkins was spurred to action after attending a lecture by co-author and University of York psychologist Jonathan Smallwood, who is a leading expert on the neuroscience behind dreams. Smallwood described his research at the lecture, which included a study showing that individuals at rest who spontaneously experience negative thoughts (a key marker of neuroticism) displayed greater activity in brain regions that are associated with conscious perception of threat. Perkins then thought that certain differences in the activity of these brain circuits that govern self-governed thought could be a casual explanation for neuroticism.
    Perkins recognized that those who had a multitude of negative self-generated thoughts because of high levels of spontaneous activity in the medial prefrontal cortex also have a tendency to switch to panic sooner than the average person. This is due to especially high processing in the basolateral nuclei of the amygdala, according to Perkins, which means that one could experience intense negative emotions even when there is no real threat present.
    "This could mean that for specific neural reasons, high scorers on neuroticism have a highly active imagination, which acts as a built-in threat generator,” Perkins said.
    This novel cognitive model could help explain the thinking patterns seen in depression, said study co-author Danilo Arnone. It is, in his opinion, complementary to the already defined role of the subgenual prefrontal cortex observed in the aetiology of mood regulation. This new hypothesis also explains the positives of being neurotic — the creativity may result simply from a neurotic person’s tendency to dwell on problems for far longer than other people.
    Perkins said that while they’re still a while off from fully explaining neuroticism, he hopes the new theory will help people make sense of their own experiences and understand that neuroticism has some creative benefits.
    "Hopefully our theory will also stimulate new research as it provides us with a straightforward unifying framework to tie together the creative aspects of neuroticism with its emotional aspects,” he said.