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Teens’ music taste determined by conformity with peers: Study

March 29, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, March 29 (ANI): A new study has linked teenagers’ music choices to the horror of failing to conform with their peers.

Gregory Berns, Chair of Neuroeconomics at Emory Univerity in the US, conducted the research on teenagers listening to songs on social networking sites such as MySpace.

“We wanted to know, for example with Amazon.com, when you see a four or five-star rating of something, does that make you like it more?” TimesOnline quoted Dr Berns as saying.

Boffins found the adolescents were more likely to change their music preference after realising the tracks were popular with other people of their age.

Dr Berns added: “We can’t deny the fact we care a lot about what people think. A lot of people think we are individuals and in democratic societies we have freedom of choice. Actually, we’re slaves to what other people think.”

The findings have been published in the journal NeuroImage. (ANI)

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HIV uses several routes to escape immune system pressure

September 19, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, September 19 (ANI): Researchers at the Emory Vaccine Center have shown that HIV relies upon a number of strategies rather than use any preferred escape route to escape immune system pressure.

The human immune system has the ability to temporarily overpower HIV in early infection.

Studies conducted in the recent past have shown that most newly infected patients develop neutralizing antibodies. These are blood proteins that glob onto the virus and would allow patients to defend themselves – if they were facing only one target.

However, the problem occurs when HIV mutates, and disguises itself enough to get away from the antibodies. The virus eventually wears down the immune system into exhaustion.

The Emory team’s findings attain significance as they suggest that even if any scientist succeeds in identifying a vaccine component that can stimulate neutralizing antibodies, HIV’s capacity for rapid mutation could still be a confounding factor.

Dr. Cynthia Derdeyn, associate professor of pathology at Emory University School of Medicine, Emory Vaccine Center and Yerkes National Primate Research Center, says that a single type of neutralizing antibody may not be enough to contain HIV.

“These neutralizing antibodies work really well – they hit the virus fast and hard. But so far, every time we look, the virus escapes,” she says.

During the study, the researchers took blood samples from the participants a few weeks after infection occurred, and then later as two participants’ immune responses continued.

They isolated individual viruses over the first two years of HIV infection, and tested how well the patients’ own antibodies could neutralize them.

“In one patient where we had very early samples, there was evidence that neutralizing antibody came up within weeks, and that’s earlier than what was previously thought,” Derdeyn says.

In both patients, some viruses mutated part of their outer proteins so that after the mutation, an enzyme would be likely to attach a sugar molecule to it.

Though the sugar molecule interferes with antibody attack, this tactic, known as the “glycan shield”, was not observed in all cases.

Other viruses mutated the part of the outer protein that the neutralizing antibodies stick to directly. In both patients, many changes in the virus’ genetic code were necessary for escape.

“We need to understand early events in the immune response if we are going to figure out what a potential vaccine should have in it. What we can show is that even in one patient, several escape strategies are going on,” Derdeyn says.

According to her, that means that in order to be immune to HIV infection, someone may need to have several types of neutralizing antibodies ready to go.

Seeing how the virus mutates will allow researchers to choose the best parts to put in a vaccine, she says.

The results are online and scheduled for publication in the September issue of the journal Public Library of Science Pathogens.(ANI)

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Early life nurturing influences social behaviors in adulthood

September 1, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Sept 1 (ANI): A new study, conducted by researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, has shown that early life nurturing impacts later life relationships.

The researchers used prairie voles as a model to understand the neurochemistry of social behavior.

Prairie voles are small, highly social, hamster-sized rodents that often form stable, life-long bonds between mates.

By influencing early social experience in prairie voles, researchers gained insight into what aspects of early social experience drive diversity in adult social behavior.

In the wild, there is striking diversity in how offspring are reared. Some pups are reared by single mothers, some by both parents and some in communal family groups.

For the study, Todd Ahern, a graduate student in the Emory University Neuroscience Program, and Larry Young, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Yerkes Research Center and Emory University School of Medicine, compared pups raised by single mothers (SM) to pups raised by both parents (BP) to determine the effects of these types of early social environments on adult social behavior.

“Our findings demonstrate that SM- and BP-reared animals experienced different levels of care during the neonatal period and that these differences significantly influenced bonding social behaviors in adulthood,” Ahern said.

Young added: “These results suggest naturalistic variation in social rearing conditions can introduce diversity into adult nurturing and attachment behaviors. SM-raised pups were slower to make life-long partnerships, and they showed less interest in nurturing pups in their communal families.

The researchers also found differences in the oxytocin system. Oxytocin is best known for its roles in maternal labor and suckling, but, more recently, it has been tied to prosocial behavior, such as bonding, trust and social awareness.

“Very simply, altering their early social experience influenced adult bonding,” Ahern said.

Further studies will look at the altered oxytocin levels in the brain to determine how these hormonal changes affect relationships.

The study is currently available online in a special edition of Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience. (ANI)

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Painless ‘microneedle’ patch may end jab fear

August 20, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 20 (ANI): Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have designed a painless patch that may someday make hypodermic needles as well as annual flu shots a thing of the past.

These patches, lined with tiny ‘microneedles,’ could make treatment of diabetes and a wide range of other diseases safer, more effective and less painful, according to the researchers.

Used as tiny hypodermic needles, they could improve treatment of macular degeneration and other diseases of the eye.

“It’s our goal to get rid of the need for hypodermic needles in many cases and replace them with a patch that can be painlessly and simply applied by a patient,” said Mark Prausnitz from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

“If you can move to something that’s as easy to apply as a band-aid, you’ve now opened the door for people to self-administer their medicine without special training,” he added.

Prausnitz said that advances in the electronics industry in microfabricating very small objects like transistors enabled the development of microneedles.

“We’ve built off those technological advances to address a need in medicine. We’re trying to bring the two worlds together,” he said.

Each needle is only a few hundred microns long, about the width of a few strands of human hair.

Prausnitz and his colleagues suggest that the microneedle patch could, for instance, replace yearly trips to the doctor for flu shots.

In a collaboration with Emory University, Prausnitz and his team administered flu vaccines via conventional injections and microneedle patches in mice.

After exposing the mice to the flu, they compared the resulting immune response and antibody levels. They found that the antibody levels were the same by either route.

Taking a closer look, they discovered that microneedle delivery resulted in a better protective immune response by other measures.

“Toward the goal of a flu vaccine patch, we are continuing the animal studies, but we’re also working toward our first human trial, which we hope to do in 2010,” Prausnitz said.

Microneedles are not just able to deliver drugs through the skin they can also be used for targeted drug delivery in the eye.

They may help create an improved treatment for macular degeneration.

The study has been presented at the 238th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society. (ANI)

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Transplant drug can boost immune response

June 22, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

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London, June 22 (ANI): Scientists at the Emory Vaccine Centre have discovered that a transplant drug called rapamycin can stimulate immune memory, which enables the immune system to respond faster and stronger to an infectious agent./pp
The study showed that rapamycin, given to transplant patients to suppress their immune system, can trigger the formation of memory CD8 T cells, enabling the immune system to respond faster upon secondary encounter./pp
Postdoctoral researcher Koichi Araki says that the new discovery will help improve the efficacy of vaccines with drugs that act similarly to rapamycin./pp
Usually during the response to this virus, 90 percent of the CD8 T cells produced to fight an infection die after a few weeks, Nature magazine quoted Araki as saying. /pp
The memory cells are generated from the 10 percent that survive, he added./pp
The study showed that when mice infected with lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) were treated with rapamycin, more CD8 T survived./pp
Rapamycin’s effects are surprising and unexpected, said Araki. /pp
For transplant patients, memory T cells can play a role in graft rejection, but they can also protect against infections. (ANI)/p

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Coming soon, a sureshot way to treat constipation

April 9, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, April 9 (ANI): Suffering from constipation? Well, help is on the way – a team of researchers has identified a potential drug target to make it a lot easier to go to the bathroom, especially when all other methods fail.

They have discovered a group of nerve ending receptors, which, when stimulated, causes the bowels to pass waste, and the specific receptor needed to activate bowel clearance.

Also, they tested chemicals that work with those receptors, providing a blueprint for the development of new laxatives.

“We hope that the receptor identified by our study would be exploited more in the design of drugs to treat constipation,” said Bindu Chandrasekharan, a researcher from Emory University who was involved in the study.

The study involved two groups of mice, focusing on a type of receptor also present on human nerves in the gut (a type of adenosine receptor).

The first group of mice had normal adenosine receptors on these nerves and normal bowel movements. The second group of mice completely lacked these adenosine receptors and showed familiar signs of constipation.

The researchers started with simple experiments such as comparing the wet weight, dry weight, and water content in the stools of both groups.

The mice were also made to drink a dye not absorbed by the body to see how it passed or did not pass.

In addition, the researchers used microscopic lasers to separate the nerve cells from the bowel to determine exactly where the receptors are located. Then they tested various chemicals that can activate or inhibit the nerve receptors.

Gerald Weissmann, M.D, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, said: “Here’s why: First, we can look forward to a solution to what is sometimes a serious problem, especially infants and the elderly. Second, it’s the first definitive proof that these receptors, the adenosine receptors, control bowel function. This discovery promises to yield agents that will permit us to sit down and ease up in the middle of a busy day.”

The study has been published online in The FASEB Journal. (ANI)

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Exposure to family violence worsens physical, mental health of older women

March 6, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 6 (ANI): Older women exposed to high levels of family violence during lifetimes are likely to have poor health, according to a new study.

In the study involving African American women aged 50 years or older, the researchers found that exposure to family violence, be it intimate partner violence or elder maltreatment, worsens their physical and mental health.

The authors suggest that a holistic approach to caring for older women should include greater awareness by clinicians of current and past violence exposure and the negative effects it may have on the health status of these women.

For the study, the research team from Temple University School of Medicine and Emory University School of Medicine used a survey to assess lifetime family violence levels, including physical violence, emotional, financial, and sexual abuse, neglect, and coercion.

“This study provides further evidence of the enduring harmful effects that family violence can have on both mental and physical health, and in particular it highlights the association between such exposure and the health of older African American women,” said Dr Susan G. Kornstein, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Women’s Health, and Executive Director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Women’s Health, Richmond, VA.

The research team included Dr Anuradha Paranjape, MPH, Nancy Sprauve-Holmes, MPH, John Gaughan, PhD, and Nadine Kaslow, PhD, from Temple University School of Medicine (Philadelphia, PA) and Emory University School of Medicine (Atlanta, GA).

The report appears in the Journal of Women’s Health. (ANI)

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Exposure to family violence worsens physical, mental health of older women

March 6, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 6 (ANI): Older women exposed to high levels of family violence during lifetimes are likely to have poor health, according to a new study.

The report appears in the Journal of Women’s Health. (ANI)

Exposure to family violence worsens physical, mental health of older women

March 6, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 6 (ANI): Older women exposed to high levels of family violence during lifetimes are likely to have poor health, according to a new study.

The report appears in the Journal of Women’s Health. (ANI)

Red-faced scientists still clueless why we blush!

January 29, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, Jan 29 (ANI): Red-faced scientists have admitted that, despite years of research, no one can explain why people go red in the face when they are embarrassed, ashamed or shy.

A leading scientist admitted that lack of understanding surrounding the reasons for blushing was the biggest gap in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, reports the Daily Express.

Writing in the New Scientist, Frans de Waal said: “We’re the only primate that (blushes) in response to embarrassing situations (shame) or when caught in a lie (guilt), and one wonders why we needed such an obvious signal to communicate these self-conscious feelings.

“Blushing interferes with the unscrupulous manipulation of others.”

de Waal, professor of primate behaviour at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, was one of several experts asked by the magazine to identify the biggest gap in their field when it came to Darwin’s theory, to mark the 200th anniversary of the scientist’s birth.

Blushing is caused when adrenalin generated by a situation makes veins expand, allowing more blood to flow and leaving the sufferer red-faced.

As for why people blush, Professor de Waal speculates it could be a way of keeping humans honest. (ANI)

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Study casts light on toxicity mechanism behind Parkinson”s disease

January 2, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, January 2 (ANI): Scientists at Emory University School of Medicine have announced the identification of a mechanism behind the development of clumps of aggregated proteins inside cells, a hallmark of Parkinson”s and other neurodegenerative diseases.

The researchers say that the build up of these clumps, also known as Lewy bodies, may be prevented by targeting a survival circuit called MEF2D, which is sensitive to the main component of Lewy bodies, a protein called alpha-synuclein.

Writing about their study in the journal Science, they have revealed that in cell cultures and animal models of Parkinson”s, an accumulation of alpha-synuclein interferes with the cell”s recycling of MEF2D, leading to cell death.

The team have found that MEF2D is especially abundant in the brains of people with Parkinson”s.

“We”ve identified what could be an important pathway for controlling cell loss and survival in Parkinson”s disease,” says senior author Dr. Zixu Mao, associate professor of pharmacology at Emory University School of Medicine.

He says that future studies may lead to the identification of effective drugs to regulate MEF2D, allowing brain cells to survive toxic stresses that impair protein recycling.

While most Parkinson’s cases do not have any obvious genetic cause, some inherited forms of the disease may be linked to mutations in the gene for alpha-synuclein or triplications of the gene, which cause the brain to produce either a toxic form of alpha-synuclein or more alpha-synuclein than normal.

“Somehow it”s toxic, but alpha-synuclein isn”t part of the cell”s machinery of death and survival,” Mao says.

During their study, Mao and his colleagues found that mice that artificially overproduce alpha-synuclein had elevated levels of apparently inactive MEF2D in their brains.

The researchers also observed that MEF2D protein levels were higher in the brains of Parkinson”s patients than in controls.

Based on their observations, they came to the conclusion that following the influence of alpha-synuclein on MEF2D may be a way to connect the various genetic and environmental risk factors for Parkinson”s.

“It may be that various stresses impact MEF2D in different ways. We think this work provides an explanation that ties several important observations together,” he says. (ANI)

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HIV uses several routes to escape immune system pressure

Painless ‘microneedle’ patch may end jab fear

Transplant drug can boost immune response

Exposure to family violence worsens physical, mental health of older women

Exposure to family violence worsens physical, mental health of older women

Exposure to family violence worsens physical, mental health of older women

Red-faced scientists still clueless why we blush!

Study casts light on toxicity mechanism behind Parkinson”s disease

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