University Of California Los Angeles

What are memories really made of

March 31, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, Mar 31 (ANI): Performing a study on sea slugs—organisms known for a relatively simple nervous system—researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles have shown what are memories really made of.

It is already known that memory formation involves the strengthening of synaptic connections between nerve cells.

Last year, a team led by Kelsey Martin, became the first to watch memories being made in sea slugs, in the form of new proteins appearing at the synapses.

They wanted to find where is knowledge stored in the complex brains of mammals.

Short-term memories, such as a telephone number about to be used, seem to be stored in two small curled-up structures called the hippocampi, buried deep in the brain”s two hemispheres.

In 2008 Courtney Miller and David Sweatt at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa showed in mice that during the first hour after a memorable event there were chemical changes to the DNA of neurons in this area, altering the proteins produced.

Over the subsequent week, there were similar changes to the genes of neurons in the cortex, reports New Scientist.

These changes seemed to be permanent, indicating that long-term memories are stored there.

The pair believes that they watched short-term memories form in the hippocampus, which then became long-term memories in the cortex.

The brain pays extra attention to things that frighten us, as remembering them could mean the difference between life and death.

A structure next to the hippocampus called the amygdala is known to play a role in stamping this indelible mark.

Last year, a team led by Sheena Josselyn at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, found that in mice they could erase a frightening memory of a noise by killing amygdala neurons whose synapses had recently been strengthened after exposure to the noise.

It was the first time a specific memory had been traced to the nerve cells that encoded it. (ANI)

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Earth and Venus might be involved in a long-distance relationship

March 17, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, March 17 (ANI): New calculations by scientists have suggested that Venus and Earth might literally be involved in a long-distance relationship, with our planet speculated to be tugging on the core of Venus and exerting control over its spin.

Whenever Venus and Earth arrive at the closest point in their orbits, Venus always presents the same face to us.

This could mean that Earth’s gravity is tugging subtly on Venus, affecting its rotation rate.

That idea, raised decades ago, was disregarded when it turned out that Venus is spinning too fast to be in such a gravitational “resonance”.

But Earth could still be pulling on Venus by controlling its core, according to calculations by Gerard Caudal of the University of Versailles-Saint Quentin, France.

According to a report in New Scientist, Caudal made large assumptions about Venus’s interior, which we know little about.

For his hypothesis to be correct, the planet would, like Earth, need a solid core surrounded by a liquid layer.

This could allow the solid core to rotate slower than the rest of the planet.

The core would also have to be asymmetric or heterogeneous, so that Earth can exert a variable tug as Venus spins.

“For the resonance to be possible, there should be something that the gravity of the Earth could grasp,” Caudal said.

This latter requirement could be problematic for the hypothesis, according to Jean-Luc Margot of the University of California, Los Angeles.

“In order to maintain a resonance, the inner core must be out of round by a significant amount,” he noted.

Yet persistent imperfections in planetary cores tend to smooth out because the core is hot and under great pressure, according to David Stevenson of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

“Still, the resonance theory is worth revisiting,” he said.

“Watching for changes in Venus’s spin over time using radar observations may reveal more about what’s going on inside the planet,” said Margot. (ANI)

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Chandigarh made “zero-budget” film chosen for Green Lifestyle Film Fest

March 16, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Nevada (US), Mar 16 (ANI): “The Green Warriors of Chandi’s Fortress”, a zero-budget film shot on recycled tapes using a handy cam about an environmental campaign of Chandigarh, will form part of international “Green Lifestyle Film Festival” in University of California—Los Angeles (USA) from March 19-21.

Made by Dr. Gaurav Chabra with one-man crew, this film claimed to save the city’s natural heritage from administration’s “insensitive” plans. “This film is a testament of how powerful a small band of people can be…”, its description says.

Founded in 2006, this Festival is a celebration of film makers who dedicate their talents, income and energy to examining what sustainability really means. It was founded with the idea that film could be used to create change for the greater good. An inner transformation can alter the course of our planet, according to its official website.

Called “a sustainable film festival”, its celebrity hosts this year include actresses Joanne Rose and Debra Wilson Skelton. Topics the films explore include: how we birth our young, how we raise children, the construction and design of our homes, illness, our movement around the Earth and how this is in reflected in how we feed ourselves, how we treat each other and the impact of our consumerist behavior on the planet. It will also launch a Vegetarian Food Drive in USA. (ANI)

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World’s oldest person passes away at 115

September 12, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, September 12 (ANI): The world’s oldest person has died at the age of 115.

According to doctors, Gertrude Baines may have suffered a heart attack.n autopsy will be conducted to confirm the cause.

Baines died on Friday in Los Angeles.

She was born in 1894 in Shellman, Georgia, the Telegraph reports.

Baines became the world’s oldest living person when a 115-year-old woman, Maria de Jesus, died in Portugal in January.

Meanwhile, the Gerontology Research Group at the University of California Los Angeles Medical Center, have claimed that the oldest person in the world is now 114-year-old Kama Chinen, who lives in Japan. (ANI)

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UCLA economist blames Hoover’s pro-labour policies for Great Depression

August 30, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 30 (ANI): A University of California, Los Angeles economist has blamed former US President Herbert Hoover’s pro-labour policies for Great Depression in 1929.

“These findings suggest that the recession was three times worse – at a minimum – than it would otherwise have been, because of Hoover,” said Lee E. Ohanian, a UCLA professor of economics.

The policies, which included both propping up wages and encouraging job-sharing, also accounted for more than two-thirds of the precipitous decline in hours worked in the manufacturing sector, which was much harder hit initially than the agricultural sector.

“By keeping industrial wages too high, Hoover sharply depressed employment beyond where it otherwise would have been, and that act drove down the overall gross national product,” said Ohanian.

“His policy was the single most important event in precipitating the Great Depression,” he added.

According to Ohanian, Hoover was concerned about two potential crises. He was afraid the stock market collapse of October 1929 would result in a recession with deflation, leading to dramatic wage cuts, as a period of deflation had done just a decade earlier.

And because of a series of recent legislative and court decisions that had expanded the power of organized labour, he also worried about the possibility of crippling strikes if such wage cuts were to come to pass.

“Hoover had the idea that if wages were kept high for workers and they shared jobs instead of being laid off, they would be able to buy more goods and services, which would help the economy improve,” Ohanian added.

After the crash, Hoover met with major leaders of industry and cut a deal with them to either maintain or raise wages and institute job-sharing to keep workers employed, at least to some degree. In response, General Motors, Ford, U.S. Steel, Dupont, International Harvester and many other large firms fell in line, even publicly underscoring their compliance with Hoover’s program.

Designed to placate labour and safeguard workers’ buying power, the step had an unintended effect. As deflation eventually did set in, the inflation-adjusted value of these wages rose over time, effectively giving workers a raise precisely at the time when companies were least in a position to afford such increases and precisely when productivity was beginning to fall.

“The wage freeze effectively raised the cost of labour and, by extension, production,” Ohanian said.

“If you artificially raise the price of production, your costs go way up and you pass them on to the customers, and they buy that much less,” he added.

Reluctant to lower wages due to Hoover’s entreaties, employers in the manufacturing sector responded by reducing the workweek and laying off workers. By September 1931, the manufacturing sector was already hurting: Hours clocked by workers had fallen by 20 percent and employment by 35 percent.

Overall, the economy suffered, with the GDP falling by 27 percent.

“The Depression was the first time in the history of the U.S. that wages did not fall during a period of significant deflation,” Ohanian said.

“In late 1931, industry finally did cut wages, but it was too late. By this point, the economy was in an unprecedented, full-blown depression,” he added.

The findings are slated to appear in the December issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Economic Theory. (ANI)

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Immune system’s role in bone loss uncovered

August 26, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, August 26 (ANI): Researchers at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) have shed light on the role that the body’s immune system plays in bone loss.

Writing about their work in the journal Clinical Immunology, they say that their findings may pave the way for new immune-based approaches for treating osteoporosis, the disease that causes fragile bones and increases the risk of fractures, resulting in lost independence and mobility.

In the report, the researchers highlight the fact that scientists have long recognized the relationship between high cholesterol and osteoporosis, but pinpointing the exact mechanism connecting the two has proved elusive.

“We’ve known that osteoporosis patients have higher cholesterol levels, more severe clogging of the heart arteries and increased risk of stroke. We also knew that drugs that lower cholesterol reduce bone fractures too. What we didn’t understand was why,” said Rita Effros, professor of pathology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

Effros suspected a clue to the mystery involved oxidation – cell and tissue damage resulting from exposure of the fatty acids in cholesterol to molecules known as free radicals.

The research team focused their study on low-density lipoprotein (LDL), the so-called “bad” cholesterol, and examined how high levels of oxidized LDL affect bone, and whether a type of immune cell called a T cell plays a role in the process.

Using blood samples from healthy human volunteers, the team isolated the participants’ T cells and cultured them in a dish. Half of the T cells were combined with normal LDL, and the rest with oxidized LDL.

The scientists stimulated half of the T cells to mimic an immune response, and left the other half alone.

They found that the T cells exposed to oxidized LDL displayed a striking response.

“Lo and behold, both the resting and the activated T cells started churning out a chemical that stimulates cells whose sole purpose is to destroy bone,” Effros said.

According to the researcher, the chemical called RANKL is involved in immune response and bone physiology.

With a view to gaining a deeper understanding as to how the immune system participates in bone loss, the team repeated the experiment in a mouse model. Half the animals were fed a high-fat diet starting at one month of age, while the control group ate a normal diet.

At 11 months, the mice on the high-fat diet showed elevated cholesterol and thinner bones.

Upon testing the T cells of the mice on the high-fat diet, Effros and her colleagues found that the cells acted differently than those of the mice on the normal diet.

The researchers said that the T cells switched on the gene that produces RANKL.

They further revealed that the chemical also appeared in the animals’ bloodstream, suggesting that the cellular activity contributed to their bone loss.

“It’s normal for our T cells to produce small amounts of RANKL during an immune response. But when RANKL is manufactured for long periods or at the wrong time, it results in excessive bone damage,” Effros said.

“That’s exactly what happened to the mice on the high-fat diet. The animals’ high cholesterol increased their levels of oxidized LDL, which told the T cells to keep generating RANKL. This discovery revealed to us how the immune system might play an entirely new role in bone loss,” she added.

Effros said that the next step would be exploring methods to control T cell response to oxidized LDL in an effort to develop immune-based approaches to prevent or slow bone loss. (ANI)

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Some Aussie frogs raise pitch of love songs to counter traffic noise

August 26, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 26 (ANI): Some Aussie frogs often raise their pitch as they serenade their partners, in order to counter traffic sounds, according to a study.

Kirsten Parris, an ecologist at the University of Melbourne, says that one species of frog in Melbourne is changing the pitch of its love song to be heard above the roar of the road.

For the study, Parris visited many urban ponds and pools inhabited by frogs, measuring traffic noise, which is, unfortunately, at the same low frequencies as many frog mating calls.

But, for the onomatopoeic ‘pobblebonk’ (Limnodynastes dumerilii), she found that a call that could originally be heard by a female 800 metres away might only carry 98 metres above 60 decibels of traffic noise, an average value for Melbourne.

She has also discovered that the southern brown tree frog (Litoria ewingii) seems to be compensating for the traffic noise by increasing the pitch of its calls1 (listen to before and after calls).

Parris suggested that installing noise barriers at strategic points around a road could help urban frogs to hear each other.

She further said that creating habitats where they thrive – such as ponds with sloping rather than steep sides – would also make sense.

“Cities provide some of the last habitat for a range of frog species around the world. So if we only worry about conserving frogs and their habitats outside cities, some of these frogs may well go extinct,” she said.

She added: “Some frog species are very sensitive to environmental changes”, but “others are quite adaptable and can persist in urban habitats if we gave them a bit of help”.

However, Kris Kaiser, an ecology graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, has put forward a note of caution on the subject of these amphibians’ adaptability.

“Frogs, unlike birds, are thought to have the frequency of their calls somewhat constrained by their anatomy. There is often a relationship between body size and frequency of call,” he said.

Thus, he claimed that the creatures’ ability to compensate for traffic noise may be limited.

The study was presented at the International Congress of Ecology in Brisbane. (ANI)

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Scientists identify 50 microRNAs in saliva that may help diagnose oral cancer

August 26, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, August 26 (ANI): At least 50 microRNAs present in human saliva may prove helpful in detecting oral cancer, according to a study conducted in America.

The findings of the study have been detailed in an article published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

“It is a Holy Grail of cancer detection to be able to measure the presence of a cancer without a biopsy, so it is very appealing to think that we could detect a cancer-specific marker in a patient’s saliva,” said Dr. Jennifer Grandis, professor of Otolaryngology and Pharmacology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Cancer Institute, and a senior editor of Clinical Cancer Research.

MicroRNAs are molecules produced in cells that have the ability to simultaneously control activity and assess the behaviour of multiple genes. Scientists believe that they may hold the key to early detection of cancer.

The emergence of a microRNA profile in saliva represents a major step forward in the early detection of oral cancer.

“The oral cavity is a mirror to systemic health, and many diseases that develop in other parts of the body have an oral manifestation,” said David T. Wong, Felix and Mildred Yip Endowed Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Dentistry.uring the study, the researchers measured microRNA levels in the saliva of 50 patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma, and 50 healthy control patients.

Their efforts led to the detection of approximately 50 microRNAs, says the study report.

The article points out that two specific microRNAs-miR-125a and miR-200a-were present at significantly lower levels in patients with oral cancer than in the healthier controls.

Wong admitted that the study’s findings would have to be confirmed by a larger and longer analysis. (ANI)

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Why we sleep – ‘science-wise’

August 21, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, Aug 21 (ANI): From animals to humans, everybody requires a good night sleep. However, the function of sleep still remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of science, say researchers.

While many theories suggest that sleep helps in brain “maintenance” – including memory consolidation and pruning- reverse damage from oxidative stress suffered while awake and promote longevity, none of them are well established.

Now, researchers from University of California, Los Angeles have come up with a new theory that sleep’s primary function is to increase animals’ efficiency and minimize their risk by regulating the duration and timing of their behaviour.

“Sleep has normally been viewed as something negative for survival because sleeping animals may be vulnerable to predation and they can’t perform the behaviors that ensure survival,” Nature quoted Jerome Siegel, professor of psychiatry and director of the Centre for Sleep Research at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behaviour at UCLA as saying,iegel said.

“These behaviours include eating, procreating, caring for family members, monitoring the environment for danger and scouting for prey.

“So it’s been thought that sleep must serve some as-yet unidentified physiological or neural function that can’t be accomplished when animals are awake,” he added.

In the study conducted using platypus, walrus, and echidna – a small, burrowing, egg-laying mammal covered in spines, the researchers showed that sleep itself is highly adaptive, much like the inactive states seen in a wide range of species, starting with plants and simple microorganisms; these species have dormant states – as opposed to sleep – even though in many cases they do not have nervous systems.

That challenges the idea that sleep is for the brain, said Siegel.

“We see sleep as lying on a continuum that ranges from these dormant states like torpor and hibernation, on to periods of continuous activity without any sleep, such as during migration, where birds can fly for days on end without stopping,” he said.

In humans, the most notable thing about sleep is that it reduces body and brain metabolism while still allowing high level of responsiveness to the environment, such as parent arousing at a baby’s whimper but sleeping through a thunderstorm.

“This Darwinian perspective can explain age-related changes in human sleep patterns as well,” said Siegel.

“We sleep more deeply when we are young, because we have a high metabolic rate that is greatly reduced during sleep, but also because there are people to protect us.

“Our sleep patterns change when we are older, though, because that metabolic rate reduces and we are now the ones doing the alerting and protecting from dangers,” the expert added.

The study appears in journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience. (ANI)

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Fatigue during radiotherapy ’caused by inflammation’

August 19, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 19 (ANI): A new study has revealed that fatigue during radiotherapy for breast or prostate cancer might be caused by inflammation.

Lead researcher Dr Julie Bower, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles has found that patients who experience fatigue during radiotherapy for might be reacting to activation of the proinflammatory cytokine network, a known inflammatory pathway.

For the study, the researchers recruited patients with breast cancer and 20 patients with prostate cancer, all early stage and determined the level of proinflammatory markers.

They found a strong link between radiotherapy treatment and fatigue.

The researchers discovered that increases in serum markers of cytokine activity, specifically IL-1 receptor antagonist and C-reactive protein, were also linked with fatigue.

“This study suggests that exposure to radiation is releasing these inflammatory cytokines and that may be contributing to fatigue,” said Bower.

Dr Stephen Hahn, chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Abramson Cancer Centre at the University of Pennsylvania, said this study is an important step forward in understanding the biological basis for fatigue.

“Fatigue related to radiotherapy is very common but we do not have any good idea about why it occurs. This suggests one possible mechanism and suggests an avenue for treatment,” he added.

The study appears in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. (ANI)

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How toxic various sizes of Alzheimer’s clusters can be to brain’s nerve cells

August 12, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, August 12 (ANI): In a breakthrough that may pave the way for an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, scientists at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) have created various sizes of clusters in their lab, which exactly match the clusters of the amyloid ß-protein (Aß) protein that form in the brains of those affected with the disease.

The researchers say that their work has shown that the ability of these grape-like clusters to kill nerve cells in the brain, scientifically known as toxicity, increases dramatically as they increase in size.

They say that though the larger clusters are more toxic than smaller ones, the larger formations are relatively rare.

Given that smaller versions are numerous, the researchers say, they are an inviting target for the development of new therapeutic drugs.

“We now have the best understanding yet of what types of toxic A-beta structures we should target with new classes of therapeutic drugs,” said senior author David Teplow, a professor of Neurology at UCLA.

The researchers have found that the larger the cluster, the greater the toxicity, but they also found that the increase in toxicity with these clusters is not linear.

“Clusters that contain two Aß molecules are more toxic than a single Aß molecule, and those with three molecules are more toxic that those with two,” said Teplow.

He pointed out that clusters composed of two Aß molecules are three-fold more toxic than the simple monomer compound, but those made of three molecules and four four molecules are more than 10-fold more toxic than are monomers.

This suggests that the larger, more toxic clusters should be the target for scientists trying to stop Alzheimer’s.

But Teplow notes that the relative amounts of the smaller clusters are far greater than that of the bigger clusters, and are, in total, more toxic.

So in an Alzheimer’s brain, the larger clusters are relatively rare, he said.

“Think of the molecules being wrapped in very weak Velcro. So a number of molecules can bind together to form large clusters, but they break apart very easily,” he said.

Having developed a process in the lab to be able to make pure forms of these Aß clusters of specific size will enable detailed study of their structures to show where every atom is.

“This will make development of drugs much easier and likely more successful,” he said. (ANI)

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Shakira attended university dressed as a boy

August 9, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, August 9 (ANI): Shakira has revealed that she cross-dressed as a boy to attend lectures at an American university two summers ago.

She reportedly took History of Western Civilisation course at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“I used to wear a cap, tennis shoes, big backpack, baggy pants – I looked like a boy. I tried to hide and concentrate on my classes,” the Daily Star quoted her as saying.

The singer said that she lived as a student for a while and apparently nobody recognized her.

She said: “I went to university after my last tour and studied history. I lived the regular student life for a bit.

“It was one of those things that had passed me by.”

The ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ hitmaker added that she often wished for normal life.

She said: “I would have liked a normal career and to have experienced normal student life – but I’m not complaining.” (ANI)

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New ‘brain-reading’ method can uncover a person’s mental state

July 29, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 28 (ANI): Researchers at Rutgers University in Newark and the University of California, Los Angeles, have developed a highly accurate method to peer into the brain, which can help uncover a person’s mental state and determine what sort of information is being processed before it reaches conscious awareness.

The discovery of this new window into the brain has provided scientists with a means to develop a more accurate model of the inner functions of the brain.

Led by Stephen Jose Hanson, a professor of Psychology at Rutgers, the study has provided direct evidence that a person’s mental state can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

The research has also suggested that a more comprehensive approach is needed to map brain activity, and that the widely held belief that localized areas of the brain are responsible for specific mental functions is misleading and incorrect.

In their analysis of global brain activity, the researchers found that different processing tasks have their own distinct pattern of neural connections stretching across the brain, similar to the fingerprints that distinctively identify each of us.

However, instead of being a static pattern, the brain is able to arrange and rearrange the connections based on the mental task being undertaken.

“You can’t just pinpoint a specific area of the brain, for example, and say that is the area responsible for our concept of self or that part is the source of our morality.

It turns out the brain is much more complex and flexible than that. It has the ability to rearrange neural connections for different functions. By examining the pattern of neural connections, you can predict with a high degree of accuracy what mental processing task a person is doing,” said Hanson.

The findings open up the possibility of categorizing a multitude of mental tasks with their unique pattern of neural circuitry, and also represent a potential first, early step in developing a means for identifying higher-level mental functions, such as ‘lying’ or abstract reasoning.

They potentially also could pave the way for earlier diagnosis and better treatment of mental disorders, such as autism and schizophrenia, by offering a means for identifying very subtle abnormalities in brain activity and synchrony.

The findings provide a more accurate direction for mapping the effective connectivity of the brain.

Known as the Connectome Project, the goal of researchers involved in the work is to provide a complete map of the neural circuitry of the central nervous system.

The study involved 130 participants, each of whom performed a different mental task, ranging from reading, to memorizing a list, to making complex decisions about whether to take monetary risks, while being scanned using fMRI.

By analysing the participants’ fMRI data against classifications developed from the fMRIs of other individuals, the researches could identify which of eight tasks participants were involved in with more than 80 percent accuracy.

The researchers could also identify what class of objects (faces, houses, animals, etc.) a person was viewing before he or she could report that information by analysing the pattern of brain activity at the back of the brain where information is processed and then conveyed towards the frontal regions associated with awareness.

“What our research shows is that if you want to understand human cognitive function, you need to look at system-wide behaviour across the entire brain. You can’t do it by looking at single cells or areas. You need to look at many areas of the brain to even understand the simplest of functions,” explained Hanson.

The study appears in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science. (ANI)

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Younger teens really do care what others think about them

July 16, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 16 (ANI): They might be fond of chanting ‘I don’t care’ slogans every now and then, but deep down inside younger adolescents or “tweens” care a lot about what others think about them, a new study has found.

The study confirmed this using brain-mapping techniques that shed new light on this complex period of social development.

The study, authored by researchers at the University of Oregon and the University of California Los Angeles, has been published in the July/August 2009 issue of the journal Child Development.

Previous research into this area has relied on reports by teenagers themselves. However, the latest study eliminated the potential bias of self-reports by using brain scans to look at the neural systems that support individuals’ perceptions of themselves.

During the brain scans, 12 early adolescents (11- to 13-year-olds) and 12 young adults (22- to 30-year-olds) responded to researchers’ questions about whether short phrases (such as “I am popular”) described them, and whether they believed others (mothers, best friends, classmates) thought these phrases described them, too.

The researchers then examined activity in the brain that occurred when the participants gave their responses.

In comparison to the young adults, the tweens see themselves in ways that may depend more on what they believe others think about their abilities and attributes. And these others-including parents and friends-may have more influence in some areas than in other areas, with moms having more sway over how the tweens view their academic abilities but best friends exerting influence over how they see their social skills, the study found.

“These findings provide a novel form of evidence confirming the sensitivity of adolescents to what they believe others think of them, especially parents and peers,” suggests Jennifer H. Pfeifer, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Oregon and the lead author.

“More importantly, they suggest that being able to see others’ perspectives on oneself may be particularly critical to development in adolescence. As a result, individuals who lack this social cognitive skill (including those with autism spectrum disorders) may face significant obstacles,” she added. (ANI)

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Simple blood test may predict Alzheimer’s risk

July 14, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 14 (ANI): Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) are working on a simple blood test that may help predict Alzheimer’s risk.

They say amyloid beta forms the plaques considered the hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, and if the immune system isn’t adequately clearing amyloid beta, it may indicate Alzheimer’s risk.

MP Biomedicals LLC, a global life sciences and diagnostics company dedicated to Alzheimer’s disease research, has received an exclusive, worldwide license to commercialize the UCLA technology and to create a diagnostic blood test for public use to screen for Alzheimer’s risk.

“Early diagnosis is the cornerstone of preventive approaches to Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr. Milan Fiala, lead author of the UCLA study and a researcher at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System.

“We are pleased that the process we’ve identified using immune cells to help predict Alzheimer’s risk will be further developed by MP Biomedicals,” Fiala added.

“We are excited by the opportunity to forward the UCLA science in creating a cost-effective blood test to screen for Alzheimer’s risk that could be used in any hospital or lab,” said Milan Panic, CEO of MP Biomedicals.

During the study, researchers took blood samples and isolated monocytes, which from birth act as the immune system’s janitors, travelling through the brain and body and gobbling up waste products – including amyloid beta.

The monocytes were incubated overnight with amyloid beta, which was labelled with a fluorescent marker.

Using a common laboratory method known as flow cytometry, the researchers then measured the amount of amyloid beta ingested by the immune cells by assessing how much fluorescence was being emitted from each monocyte cell.

The 18 Alzheimer’s disease patients in the study showed the least uptake of amyloid beta.

The results were found to be positive in 94 percent of the Alzheimer’s patients, and negative in 100 percent of the university professor control group.

In addition, the results were found to be positive in 60 percent of study participants who suffered from mild cognitive impairment, a condition that increases the risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

“Similar to screening patients for heart disease risk by a cholesterol test, a positive result for Alzheimer’s risk in some patients may suggest further interventions and advanced diagnostics, such as a brain PET scan and neurocognitive testing,” said Fiala.

The study has been reported in the Journal of Neuroimmunology. (ANI)

Filed Under: Science News Tagged With: brain and body, david geffen school, david geffen school of medicine, david geffen school of medicine at ucla, disease patients, fiala, Flow Cytometry, global life, immune cells, laboratory method, milan panic, monocyte cell, monocytes, mp biomedicals, study researchers, ucla science, ucla study, ucla technology, university of california los angeles, worldwide license

New water desalination system helps cut costs, time in producing clean water

July 14, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 14 (ANI): Scientists have developed a new water desalination and filtration system that helps cut costs and time in producing clean water.

The new mini-mobile-modular (M3) “smart” water desalination and filtration system has been made by researchers at the UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science.

In designing and constructing new desalination plants, creating and testing pilot facilities is one of the most expensive and time-consuming steps.

Traditionally, small yet very expensive stationary pilot plants are constructed to determine the feasibility of using available water as a source for a large-scale desalination plant.

The M3 system helps cut both costs and time.

“Our M3 water desalination system provides an all-in-one mobile testing plant that can be used to test almost any water source,” said Alex Bartman, a graduate student on the M3 team who helped to design the sensor networks and data acquisition computer hardware in the system.

“The advantages of this type of system are that it can cut costs, and because it is mobile, only one M3 system needs to be built to test multiple sources. Also, it will give an extensive amount of information that can be used to design the larger-scale desalination plant,” he added.

The M3 demonstrated its effectiveness in a recent field study in the San Joaquin Valley in which it desalted agricultural drainage water that was nearly saturated with calcium sulfate salts, accomplishing this with just one reverse osmosis (RO) stage.

“In this specific field study by our team, in the first part of the reverse osmosis process, 65 percent of the water that was fed in was recovered as drinking water, or potable water,” said Yoram Cohen, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and lead investigator on the team.

“We can potentially go up to 95 percent recovery using an accelerated chemical demineralization process that was also developed here at UCLA,” he added.

According to Bartman, the M3 could also be deployed to various locations and used to produce fresh water in emergency situations.

“The M3′s ‘smart’ nature means it can autonomously adapt to almost any variation in source water, allowing the M3 system to operate in situations where traditional RO desalination systems would fail almost immediately,” he said.

Though the system is compact enough to be transported anywhere in the back of a van, it can generate 6,000 gallons of drinking water per day from the sea or 8,000 to 9,000 gallons per day from brackish groundwater.

By Cohen’s estimate, that means producing enough drinking water daily for up to 6,000 to 12,000 people. (ANI)

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Embryonic stem cells and reprogrammed skin cells are clearly distinguishable

July 4, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 4 (ANI): Researchers at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) have shown that there are certain molecular differences between embryonic stem cells and skin cells skin cells reprogrammed into embryonic-like cells.

Their work has made them the first ever research team to show that the two cell types are clearly distinguishable from each other.

The team’s study shows that embryonic stem cells and the reprogrammed cells, known as induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, have overlapping but still distinct gene expression signatures.

Bill Lowry, a researcher with the Broad Stem Cell Research Center, has revealed that the differing signatures were evident regardless of where the cell lines were generated, the methods by which they were derived or the species from which they were isolated.

“We need to keep in mind that iPS cells are not perfectly similar to embryonic stem cells,” said Lowry, an assistant professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology.

“We’re not sure what this means with regard to the biology of pluripotent stem cells. At this point our analyses comprise just an observation. It could be biologically irrelevant, or it could be manifested as an advantage or a disadvantage,” he added.

Lowry, UCLA researcher Kathrin Plath, and their colleagues performed microarray gene expression profiles on embryonic stem cells and iPS cells to measure the expression of thousands of genes at once, creating a global picture of cellular function.

The researchers noted that, when the molecular signatures were compared, it was clear that certain genes were expressed differently in embryonic stem cells than they were in iPS cells.

Upon further comparing their data to that stored on a National Institutes of Health data base, submitted by laboratories worldwide, the researchers once again found overlapping but distinct differences in gene expression.

“This suggested to us that there could be something biologically relevant causing the distinct differences to arise in multiple labs in different experiments. That answered our first question: Would the same observation be made with cell lines created and maintained in other laboratories?” Lowry said

With a view to confirming their findings in iPS cell lines created using the latest derivation methods, the UCLA researchers analysed cell lines derived with newer methods that do not require integration of the reprogramming factors.

Their analysis again showed different molecular signatures between iPS cells and their embryo-derived counterparts, and these signatures showed a significant degree of overlap with those generated with integrative methods.

The researchers then set out to determine whether that was a phenomenon limited to human embryonic stem cells, and analyzed mouse embryonic stem cells and iPS lines derived from mouse skin cells. The experiment once again validated their findings.

They also analyzed iPS cell lines made from mouse blood cells with the same result.

“We can’t explain this, but it appears something is different about iPS cells and embryonic stem cells. And the differences are there, no matter whose lab the cells come from, whether they’re human or mouse cells or the method used to derive the iPS cells. Perhaps most importantly, many of these differences are shared amongst lines made in various ways,” Lowry said.

The UCLA researchers next plan to conduct more sophisticated analyses on the genes being expressed differently in the two cell types so as to understand what is causing that differential expression.

“It will be important to further examine these cells lines in a careful and systematic manner, as has been done with other stem cell lines, if we are to understand the role they can play in clinical therapies and what effect the observed differences have on these cells,” said Mark Chin, a postdoctoral fellow and first author of the study.

The study has been published in the journal Cell Stem Cell. (ANI)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: assistant professor, Biology Cells, california los angeles, cell biology, Cellular Function, developmental biology, distinct differences, embryonic stem cells, gene expression profiles, genes, health data base, july 4, lowry, National Institutes of Health, Pluripotent Stem Cells, researcher, signatures, skin cells, somethin, stem cell research, sure what this means, university of california los angeles, what this means

New genes’ discovery confirms immune system may play a role in schizophrenia

July 2, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, July 2 (ANI): An international study led by researchers at the University of California-Los Angeles and nearly 50 institutions worldwide has identified new genes that confirm that the immune system may play a role in the development of Schizophrenia.

The researchers say that they have also identified genetic anomalies that disrupt the cellular pathways involved in brain development, memory and cognition, all markers of schizophrenia.

Roel Ophoff, the co-lead author and an assistant professor at the Center for Neurobehavioral Genetics at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, has revealed that he and his collaborators performed a genome-wide scan of 2,663 people diagnosed with schizophrenia, and 13,498 controls from eight European locations.

He said that they were looking for single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP), genetic variations that are commonly present in the general population but more often present in those suffering from the disorder.

In total, nearly 314,000 SNPs were included in the analysis, he added.

Ophoff said that their study revealed significant associations with genetic markers on the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC), a group of genes that controls several aspects of the immune response.

He further said that the team also found additional variations in two other genes, called NRGN and TCF4, pointing to perturbation of pathways involved in brain development, memory and cognition.

“This is another step forward in understanding the biological basis of this disorder, one that robs people of their lives,” Nature magazine quoted Ophoff, who holds a joint appointment at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, as saying.

“It also shows the importance of worldwide collaborations for the study of schizophrenia genetics, because it allows us to do very large numbers of scans,” he added.

Ophoff said that the findings were significant yet not without challenge since the study aimed at the “common variants” in the human genome.

“In other words, these are not rare mutations present in only a few individuals, but these genetic variants are abundantly present in the population. Anybody could carry this variant, but that doesn’t mean they will necessarily develop the disease. Yet, when you look at the population at large, these variants are more often present in patients than in healthy control subjects,” he said.

And that’s important in developing new techniques to thwart the disease, he reckons.

“Knowing these specific genes are involved in the pathway leading to schizophrenia provides unique clues as to which molecular mechanisms are involved,” he said.

While the association between schizophrenia and the immune system has long been suspected, the evidence for it has been mostly circumstantial to date.

And impaired cognitive and memory functions are increasingly being recognized as core features of schizophrenia, which are poorly addressed by current medications.

“The three common genetic variants we describe, then, which we feel predisposes certain individuals to schizophrenia, have the potential to be translated into targets for the development of new and novel medications,” Ophoff said. (ANI)

Filed Under: Health News Tagged With: biological basis, brain development, cellular pathways, genetic anomalies, genetic markers, Genetic variations, immune response, major histocompatibility complex, memory and cognition, nature magazine, neurobehavioral, nucleotide polymorphisms, perturbation, roel, schizophrenia genetics, semel institute, snps, university of california los angeles, university of utrecht, worldwide collaborations

Early Alzheimer’s patients fail to remember what’s important

June 27, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, June 26 (ANI): People in early stages of Alzheimer’s disease have trouble focusing on what is important to remember, according to University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) researchers.

“One of the first telltale signs of Alzheimer’s disease may be not memory problems, but failure to control attention,” said lead researcher Alan Castel, UCLA assistant professor of Psychology.
The study consisted of three groups-109 healthy older adults (68 of them female), with an average age of just under 75; 54 older adults (22 of them female) with very mild Alzheimer’s disease, who were functioning fine in their daily lives, with an average age of just under 76; and 35 young adults, with an average age of 19.

All participants were presented with eight lists of 12 words, one word at a time, each paired with a point value from 1 to 12. A new word with its value was presented on a screen every second. The words were common, like “table,” “wallet” and “apple.”

The participants were given 30 seconds to recall the words, and were told to maximize their scores by focusing on remembering the high-value words.

They found that the young adults were selective, as they remembered more of the high-value words than the low-value words.

They recalled an average of 5.7 words out of 12, while the healthy older adults remembered fewer words, an average of 3.5, but were equally selective in recalling the high-value words.

“It’s not surprising that the older adults recalled fewer words. Memory capacity declines with age. However, the older adults were just as selective as the younger adults,” said Castel.

The people with very mild Alzheimer’s disease recalled an average of just 2.8 words, and had some trouble in focusing on just the high-value words, recalling some lower-value words.

“They recall fewer words and their ability to be selective is worse. They understand that they should attend to the high-value words, but they can’t do it as well,” said Castel.

He added: “Memory can be a limited resource. If we can recall only so much information, we need to be selective in old age. A trick for successful aging is to know what the important things are and to remember those things. Many older adults learn to be more selective because they know they can’t remember everything. The ability to be selective might decline when our attention is divided and in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.”

The research has been published in the journal Neuropsychology. (ANI)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Alzheimer S Disease, apple, assistant professor, california los angeles, castel, declines, failure, memory capacity, memory problems, older adults, participants, people, psychology, researcher, telltale signs, Ucla Researchers, University of California, university of california los angeles, wallet, young adults

King of Pop Michael Jackson dies of ‘heart attack’

June 27, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, June 26 (ANI): King of pop Michael Jackson passed away at the age of 50 last night after he reportedly suffered a massive heart attack due to drug overdose.

The legendary star collapsed and stopped breathing after he took an injection of a powerful painkiller named Demerol.

It is believed that the singer was addicted to the drug – similar to morphine – and it is feared that he took an overdose.

An emergency call made paramedics rush to his Los Angeles home where they found he had no pulse.

He was taken to the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Centre, where staff tried to resuscitate him but he was completely unresponsive.

The ‘Thriller’ hit-maker had been fighting skin cancer and was due to start a series of comeback concerts in London next month.

But, much to everybody’s shock, fans around the world are today mourning the death of the legend.

In an interview, long-time family insider Arthur Phoenix said that the Jackson family is devastated over the loss.

“The family is in mourning right now. They are devastated and very hurt,” The Sun quoted Phoenix as saying.

He added: “The world of entertainment has suffered a great loss, the biggest since the death of Elvis Presley.

“It hurts me to think that one of the world’s great entertainers has passed. I wish that he had been here a lot longer.” (ANI)

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