Scientists Uncover Inflammatory Circuit That Triggers Breast Cancer

 by Biomechanism 

“Findings Point to Potentially Effective New Therapeutic Target for Cancer Treatment and Prevention” 

Although it’s widely accepted that inflammation is a critical underlying factor in a range of diseases, including the progression of cancer, little is known about its role when normal cells become tumor cells. Now, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have shed new light on exactly how the activation of a pair of inflammatory signaling pathways leads to the transformation of normal breast cells to cancer cells.

The study, led by Jun-Li Luo, an assistant professor at Scripps Florida, was published online before print by the journal Molecular Cell on February 23, 2012. Continue reading below…

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The scientists’ discovery points to the activation of a self-sustaining signaling circuit that inhibits a specific RNA, a well-known tumor suppressor that helps limit the spread of cancer (metastasis). Therapies that disable this circuit and halt this miRNA repression could have the potential to treat cancer.

The Spark that Ignites Trouble

Jun-Li Luo, an assistant professor at Scripps Florida

In the new study, scientists identified the specific pathways that transform breast epithelial cells into active cancer cells.

The researchers found immune/inflammatory cells ignite the transient activation of MEK/ERK and IKK/NF-kB pathways; the MEK/ERK pathway then directs a consistent activation of a signaling circuit in transformed cells. This consistent signaling circuit maintains the malignant state of the tumor cells.

Luo compares this process to starting a car—a car battery starts the engine much like the transient signal activation turns on the consistent signal circuit. Once the engine is started, it no longer needs the battery.

The scientists go on to show that the initial activation of these pathways also activates IL6, a cytokine involved in a number of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, including cancer. IL6 acts as a tumor initiator, sparking the self-sustaining circuit in normal breast cells necessary for the initiation and maintenance of their transformed malignant state.

In establishing that self-sustaining signal circuit, IL6 represses the action of microRNA-200c, which is responsible for holding down inflammation and cell transformation. Since enhanced microRNA-200c expression impairs the growth of existing cancer cells and increases their sensitivity to anti-tumor drugs, compounds that disable microRNA-200c repression have the potential to act as a broad-spectrum therapeutic.

Interestingly, the new findings dovetail with the “multiple-hits theory” of tumor formation, which posits that once normal cells in the human body accumulate enough pre-cancerous mutations, they are at high-risk for transformation into tumor cells. While the newly described initial pathway activation is momentary and not enough to cause any lasting changes in cell behavior, it may be just enough to tip the cell’s transformation to cancer, especially if it comes on top of an accumulation of other cellular changes.

The first author of the study, “IL6-Mediated Suppression of Mir-200c Directs Constitutive Activation of an Inflammatory Signaling Circuit That Drives Transformation and Tumorigenesis,” is Matjaz Rokavec of Scripps Research. Other authors include Weilin Wu, also of Scripps Research.

The study was supported by the National Institute of Health, the United States Department of Defense, the Florida Department of Health, and Frenchman’s Creek Women for Cancer Research.

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Courtesy Scripps Research Institute, one of the world’s largest independent, non-profit biomedical research organizations. 

Ritalin takers more aware of mistakes

THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE

A single dose of Ritalin can cause a significantly greater acvitiy in the brain's error monitoring network. Image: Mordolff/iStockphoto People who take Ritalin are far more aware of their mistakes, a University of Melbourne study has found. The study, by Dr Rob Hester from the Department of Psychological Sciences and colleagues at the Queensland Brain Institute, investigated how the brain monitors ongoing behaviour for performance errors – specifically failures of impulse control.  It found that a single dose of methylphenidate (Ritalin) results in significantly greater activity in the brain’s error monitoring network and improved volunteers’ awareness of their mistakes. Diminished awareness of performance errors limits the extent to which humans correct their behaviour and has been linked to loss of insight in a number of clinical syndromes, including Alzheimer's Disease, Schizophrenia and Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. The findings demonstrate that activity within those parts of the brain that deal with human error, including the dorsal anterior cingulate (dACC) and inferior parietal lobule (IPL) differs depending on whether participants are aware of their performance errors.  Critically, researchers showed that a single, clinically relevant dose of methylphenidate, which works by increasing the levels of catecholamines in the brain, dramatically improved error awareness in healthy adults. Researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to show that methylphenidate could promote the conscious awareness of performance errors by strengthening activation differences within the dACC and IPL for errors made with and without awareness, compared to placebo and other comparison drugs. While the study provided only a single dose of methylphenidate to healthy participants and needed to be replicated in people using standard clinical doses, the data highlights the potential of pharmacotherapy in addressing awareness and insight problems that feature in a range of neurologic and psychiatric conditions.  Dr Hester said failure to recognise errors was related to poor insight into a person’s clinical condition, impairing treatment.  “For example, in conditions such as Schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s Disease, poor error awareness has been associated with delusions, and paranoia and has been the cause of considerable distress to patients,” he said.  “Failing to recognise your own error at the time can account for the difference between your recollection and the reality that confronts you. Understanding the brain mechanisms that underlie how we become conscious of our mistakes is an important first step in improving error awareness, and potentially reducing these symptoms.” Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

இங்கிலாந்தின் முதலாவது போர் விமானத்தின் பெயர் யாழ்ப்பாணம்!

இங்கிலாந்தின் முதலாவது போர் விமானத்தின் பெயர் யாழ்ப்பாணம் என்பது ஆகும்.

இப்போர் விமானத்தை உருவாக்குகின்றமைக்கு யாழ்ப்பாண தமிழர்கள் வழங்கி இருந்த நிதிப் பங்களிப்புக் காரணமாகவே இப்பெயர் சூட்டப்பட்டு இருக்கின்றது.

இப்போர் விமானம் குறித்த தகவல்கள் மிகவும் சுவாரஷியமானவை.

முன்னைய கால விமானங்கள் 100 குதிரை வலு என்ஜின்களுடன் இயங்கி வந்தன. இவை மரம், துணி, வயர்கள் போன்றவற்றால் ஆக்கப்பட்டு இருந்தன.

முதலாம் உலகப் போர் இடம்பெற்ற காலம். எதிரிகளை வேவு பார்ப்பதற்கும், குண்டு வீசுவதற்கும் சிறந்த பொறியாக விமானம் கண்டு கொள்ளப்பட்டது. ஆனால் மேற்சொன்ன ரக விமானங்கள் அவற்றின் வடிவமைப்புக் காரணமாக எளிதில் தாக்குதல்களுக்கு உள்ளாகின.

போர் விமானத்தை உருவாக்க தீர்மானித்தது இங்கிலாந்து அரசு. ஆனால் இதை உருவாக்குவதற்கான பணம் இன்றி திணறியது. இந்நிலையில் காலனித்துவ நாடுகளுக்கு இச்செய்தி அனுப்பியது.

மலேசியாவை அப்போது நிர்வகித்து வந்தவர் டாக்டர் அல்மா பேக்கர். வரிகள் மூலம் தேவையான பணத்தை பெற முடியாது என்று உணர்ந்து இருந்தார். வித்தியாசமான பிரசார உத்தி ஒன்றை தொடங்கினார். போர் விமானத்துக்கு உதவி செய் என்பது இப்பிரசாரம். அதிக பணம் தருகின்றவர்கள் முன்மொழிகின்ற பெயர் இவ்விமானத்துக்கு சூட்டப்படும் என்று உறுதிமொழி வழங்கி இருந்தார்.

யாழ். மல்லாகத்தை பூர்வீகமாக கொண்ட சுப்பிரமணியம் என்பவர் மலேசியாவில் உயர் தொழில் வகித்து வந்தார். இவரை இப்பிரசாரம் மிகவும் கவர்ந்தது. மலேசியாவில் குடியேறி இருந்த யாழ்ப்பாணத்தார்களிடம் இருந்து நிதி சேகரித்து F.E.2b ரக விமானம் ஒன்றை பரிசாக இங்கிலாந்து அரசுக்கு வழங்கினார். அன்றைய நாளில் 2250 ஸ்ரேர்லிங் பவுண்டு வரை பணம் சேர்க்கப்பட்டு இருந்தது.

இவ்விமானம் இரட்டைச் சிறகுகள் கொண்டிருந்தது. இரண்டு பயணிகளை கொண்டு செல்லக் கூடியதாகவும், குண்டு வீசவும், துப்பாக்கிச் சமரில் ஈடுபடவும் வேண்டிய வசதிகளை கொண்டதாகவும் இருந்தது. பிரித்தானிய அரச விமான தொழில்சாலையில் தயாரிக்கப்பட்டது. ஜேர்மனியர்களின் குண்டு மழைகளுக்குள் தீவிரமாக நுழைந்து பேரழிவுகளை ஏற்படுத்தியது. முதலாவது உலக மகாயுத்தத்தின்பின் அருங்காட்சி அகத்தில் வைக்கப்பட்டு உள்ளது.

Study improves menopause prediction

THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND

The researchers were able to classify women according to different profiles for each group of (menopause) symptoms. Image: suesmith2/iStockphoto Doctors could soon be able to predict the type and duration of menopausal symptoms an individual woman is likely to experience thanks to new findings from The University of Queensland (UQ). Working in collaboration with the UK Medical Research Council, the UQ research team expects the discoveries will allow doctors to give patients more details on the symptoms they experience leading up to menopause, as well as an idea of their likely duration after menopause. The research team, led by Professor Gita Mishra from UQ's School of Population Health, found that the severity and range of health symptoms experienced through midlife formed into groups and distinct patterns, but only some of these, such as vasomotor symptoms (hot flushes and cold or night sweats) were related to the timing of the menopause. “Women who experienced only minimal symptoms before their last period were unlikely to develop severe symptoms later, while for others the timing of symptoms relative to menopause was key to understanding the likely duration of their symptoms,” Professor Mishra said. The UK study used annual surveys from more than 600 women with natural menopause to identify four groups of symptoms: psychological (eg. anxiety and depression), somatic (eg.headaches and joint pain), vasomotor (eg. hot flushes and night sweats), and sexual discomfort. Women who had undergone hormone treatment or hysterectomies were excluded from the study. Researchers found that by examining the timing and severity of symptoms, they were able to classify women according to different profiles for each group of symptoms. For instance, with some women the severity of vasomotor symptoms increased leading up to menopause and then tended to decline, while for others whose vasomotor symptoms started and peaked later, symptoms were likely to last four years or more into postmenopause. The UK study also found that women with higher education levels and social class were less likely to experience vasomotor symptoms than other women. The UQ study was based on multiple surveys of mid-age women from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health. Professor Mishra said that she was reassured that, in spite of differences in the surveys used, both studies had identified similar groups and profiles for the severity of symptoms experienced through the menopausal transition. “While we would still like to see findings from other studies, we do think that symptom profiles are part of a move towards a more tailored approach – where health professionals can make a clearer assessment of what women can expect based on their history of symptoms – and this may be worthwhile not only in terms of reassurance but in selecting treatment options.” More details on the Medical Research Council National Survey of Health and Development used in the UK study can be found at www.nshd.mrc.ac.uk. The UK study is published in the BMJ (GD Mishra, Kuh D. ‘Health symptoms during midlife in relation to menopausal transition: British prospective cohort study. 344:e402). Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

NEEDNT food list fights obesity

UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO

The list is aimed at differentiating nutritious foods from those that are just high in calories. Image: alexskopje/iStockphoto Researchers at the University of Otago, Christchurch have developed a new list of 49 ‘NEEDNT’ foods as part of a treatment research programme for obesity. The list, published in the latest New Zealand Medical Journal, has been developed primarily to help obese people more clearly identify those foods that are best avoided in a healthy diet and only eaten from time to time as a treat, or in some cases avoided altogether. The researchers describe NEEDNT foods (see list below) as those which are energy (calorie) dense or high in fat and/or added sugars, foods that are prepared using a high fat cooking method, such as frying or roasting, or those foods which have a large amount of energy relative to their essential nutrient (vitamin and/or mineral) content. “This list of 49 common foods is designed as a therapeutic intervention to be used by health professionals with obese or overweight people wanting to lose weight. It’s aimed at differentiating nutritious foods from those that are just high in calories,” says lead researcher and dietitian Dr Jane Elmslie. “Many people struggle to know what to eat if they have a weight problem. The advice out there is often complicated and contradictory. It can be quite difficult to understand the relevance of health-related product endorsements and the information on food labels.” Dr Elmslie stresses this is not just another list of high calorie foods. “The foods on this list are high in calories, and they are also low in essential nutrients (vitamins and minerals), or are able to be replaced by lower calorie more nutritious alternatives.” The list of 49 foods was compiled using the National Heart Foundation and Diabetes New Zealand’s ‘Foods to Avoid’, ‘Stop Eating’ and ‘Optional Foods’ lists, as well as the Canterbury District Health Board’s ‘Supermarket Shopping Guide’. The list names the generic food, and suggests a healthier replacement or none at all. For instance some of the foods where there is no easy low energy replacement according to the NEEDNT list are: muesli bars, ice cream, cakes, chocolate, doughnuts, jam, honey, pies and pastries. “Muesli bars are a classic example of how overweight people can be misled into thinking they’re eating healthy food. In fact most muesli bars are high in calories, and fat and sugar, with minimal nutritional value. Essentially they are just another form of biscuit,” says Dr Elmslie. Dr Ria Schroder points out that, “simply avoiding NEEDNT foods is unlikely to be an effective weight reduction strategy on its own. However knowing which foods to make individual rules for, can help people think more carefully about whether what they are eating is nutritious and necessary, or just random recreational grazing.” The authors say that with 63% of New Zealanders now either obese or overweight there is an urgent need for new strategies or guidelines to deal with this growing health issue, and the NEEDNT list is one possible approach. The authors intend carrying out further research to examine the impact of the NEEDNT list on overweight or obese adults who want to lose weight. Editor's note: Click here to access the full list. Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

New insights into understanding brain performance

(Medical Xpress) -- People who take Ritalin are far more aware of their mistakes, a University of Melbourne study has found.

The study, by Dr Rob Hester from the Department of Psychological Sciences and colleagues at the Queensland Brain Institute, investigated how the brain monitors ongoing behaviour for performance errors – specifically failures of impulse control. 

It found that a single dose of methylphenidate (Ritalin) results in significantly greater activity in the brain’s error monitoring network and improved volunteers’ awareness of their mistakes.

Diminished awareness of performance errors limits the extent to which humans correct their behaviour and has been linked to loss of insight in a number of clinical syndromes, including Alzheimer's Disease, Schizophrenia and Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. The findings demonstrate that activity within those parts of the brain that deal with human error, including the dorsal anterior cingulate (dACC) and inferior parietal lobule (IPL) differs depending on whether participants are aware of their performance errors.  Critically, researchers showed that a single, clinically relevant dose of methylphenidate, which works by increasing the levels of catecholamines in the brain, dramatically improved error awareness in healthy adults.

Researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to show that methylphenidate was able to promote the conscious awareness of performance errors by strengthening activation differences within the dACC and IPL for errors made with and without awareness, compared to placebo and other comparison drugs.

While the study provided only a single dose of methylphenidate to healthy participants, and needed to be replicated in people using standard clinical doses, the data highlights the potential of pharmacotherapy in addressing problems of awareness and insight that features in a range of neurologic and psychiatric conditions.

 Dr Hester said failure to recognise errors was related to poor insight into a person’s clinical condition, which can impair treatment. 

“For example, in conditions such as Schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s Disease, poor error awareness has been associated with delusions, paranoia and has been the cause of considerable distress to patients,” he said. 

“Failing to recognise your own error at the time can account for the difference between your recollection and the reality that confronts you. Understanding the brain mechanisms that underlie how we become conscious of our mistakes is an important first step in improving error awareness, and potentially reducing these symptoms.” 

Provided by University of Melbourne

"New insights into understanding brain performance." February 24th, 2012.http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-insights-brain.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Characteristics of fathers with depressive symptoms

Voluminous research literature attests to the multiple negative consequences of maternal depression and depressive symptoms for the health and development of children. In contrast, there is a profound paucity of information about depressive symptoms in fathers according to a follow up study by NYU School of Medicine researchers in the February 23rd online edition of Maternal and Child Health Journal.

In late 2011 lead investigator, Michael Weitzman, MD, professor of Pediatrics and Environmental Medicine and his co-authors identified, for the first time ever, in a large and nationally representative sample, increased rates of mental health problems of children whose fathers had depressive symptoms. In that paper, 6% of children with neither a mother or a father with depressive symptoms, 15% of those with a father, 20% of those with a mother, and 25% of children with both a mother and a father with depressive symptoms had evidence of emotional or behavioral problems.

"While the finding of increased rates of mental health problems among children whose fathers had depressive symptoms was not surprising in our earlier study, the fact that no prior large scale studies had investigated this issue is truly remarkable, as is the finding that one out of every four children with both a mother and a father with symptoms of depression have mental health problems" said Weitzman. He also noted that the findings highlighted "the urgent need to recognize the roles of fathers in the lives of children and families in clinical and public policy formulation and implementation, to further explore ways in which the mental health of fathers influence the health and function of our nation's children, and to structure our health and human services so as to identify and effectively treat fathers who are depressed or suffering from other mental health problems. A first step is to identify which of our nation's fathers are at increased risk for depression, which is the main reason that we undertook the current study"

The current paper, again using a large and nationally representative sample of households in the USA (7,247 households in which mothers, fathers and children lived), is the first paper to investigate characteristics of fathers that are independently associated with increased rates of depressive symptoms. Overall, 6% of all fathers had scores suggesting that they were suffering from depressive symptoms.

Using previously widely used measures of fathers', mothers' and children's physical and mental health, as well as numerous other family and child characteristics, such as maternal and paternal age, race, marital status, and educational attainment, as well as child age, these data demonstrate the following factors being independently associated with increased rates of fathers' depressive symptoms: living in poverty (1.5 times as common as not living in poverty); living with a child with special health care needs (1.4 times as common); living with a mother with depressive symptoms (5.75 times as common); poor paternal physical health (3.31 times as common) and paternal unemployment (6.50 times as common).

While the findings of poverty, having a child with special health care needs, and living with a mother with depressive symptoms are not unexpected, the fact that fathers' unemployment is by far the strongest predictor of depressive symptoms is a brand new, and unique finding with profound implications for the health and development of children in this time of extremely high rates of unemployment.

"The findings reported in the current paper demonstrate factors that could help identify fathers who might benefit from clinical screening for depression, and we believe the results are particularly salient given the current financial crisis and concurrent increase in unemployment in the USA" said Dr. Weitzman. "Also of serious concern is the fact that living with a mother who herself has depressive symptoms is almost associated with almost as large an increased rate of paternal depressive symptoms as is paternal unemployment. Fathers play profoundly important roles in the lives of children and families, and are all too often forgotten in our efforts to help children. These new findings, we hope, will be useful to much needed efforts to develop strategies to identify and treat the very large number of fathers with depression."

Provided by New York University School of Medicine

"Characteristics of fathers with depressive symptoms." February 24th, 2012.http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-characteristics-fathers-depressive-symptoms.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Statins linked with lower depression risk in heart patients

This is Mary Whooley, M.D. Credit: UCSF

Patients with heart disease who took cholesterol-lowering statins were significantly less likely to develop depression than those who did not, in a study by Mary Whooley, MD, a physician at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

The study was published electronically in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry(February 21, 2012).

Whooley and her research team evaluated 965 heart disease patients for depression. They found that the patients who were on statins were significantly less likely to be clinically depressed than those who were not. They then followed the 776 patients who were not depressed – 520 who were using statins and 256 who were not – for an additional six years. Of those taking statins, 18.5 per cent developed depression, compared with 28 per cent of those not on the drugs. Put another way, the patients who took statins were 38 per cent less likely to develop depression than those who did not.

As the study went on, said Whooley, the difference between the two groups became more pronounced, with the patients on statins becoming less likely to develop depression and the patients not on statins becoming more depressed over time.

"This would suggest that statins may have some kind of long-term protective effect against depression, perhaps by helping to prevent atherosclerosis in the brain, which can contribute to depressive symptoms," Whooley said.

She also noted that statins positively affect the endothelium – the inner lining of the blood vessels – keeping blood vessels less rigid and better able to adapt to the body's changing needs. "The exact mechanism is unknown, however, and requires further study," she said.

Whooley cautioned that it is possible that patients who take statins "are just healthier overall than those who don't, and somehow we're not accounting for that in our analysis, even though we adjusted for factors such as smoking, physical activity and cholesterol levels."

If statins are definitively proven to protect against depression, said Whooley, they could reduce the burden of depressive symptoms in patients with heart disease and, by extension, improve cardiovascular outcomes in depressed patients. Whooley has shown in previous studies that heart disease patients with depression are less likely to exercise and take medication, thus increasing their risk for heart attack, stroke, and other cardiovascular events.

Statins are the most commonly-prescribed medication in the world, according to the study authors. "They are relatively safe and generally well-tolerated," said Whooley.

Provided by the University of California, San Francisco

"Statins linked with lower depression risk in heart patients." February 24th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-statins-linked-depression-heart-patients.html

Posted by

Robert Karl Stonjek

FIVE WAYS TO MOTIVATE YOUR EMPLOYEES

If you are struggling to keep your employees excited about their work on a daily basis, try using these tips. These five strategies will revolutionize your work environment! Get the information here!

Entrepreneur suggests…

1. Hire right. Start down the road to motivated employees by hiring the right person for the right job. Too often, time-strapped entrepreneurs will hire a neighbor or acquaintance because they don’t want to sift through a big stack of resumes. Instead, take the time to properly vet candidates. Then, hire someone who is qualified for the job and, more importantly, is a fit with your company’s culture.

1. Offer clear goals. Do your workers know what their top priorities are, and what needs to be done by what deadline? Vagueness is a big motivation-killer.

1. Manage by walking around. The owner of a successful southern California regional hardware chain once shared with me that he constantly popped in at his various store locations, with no set schedule. Productivity stayed high, as workers never knew when he’d be back. “Workers do what you inspect,” he explained to me. “Not what you expect.”

1. Share your finances. I know several entrepreneurs who have an “open book” policy at their company, where they share revenue, expenses and other financial figures with workers. This transparency can be a big win — workers feel they’re privy to inside information, and they understand exactly how much business they need to get in the door for the company to grow. This makes profit-sharing programs really work, as employees know exactly what it takes to hit the profit point. Owners fear releasing this information, but as one owner of a cabinetry business recently discovered, sharing company financials including his own salary can be a positive step.

1. Do incentives right. Incentive programs can backfire if they are a way to entice workers to do something that makes them uncomfortable or that they feel is not achievable. Set realistic benchmarks and make sure they are relevant and enticing to your staff, or the program may just lead to more lethargy and inaction.

Get more great tips at Entrepreneur!

 

Researchers induce PTSD symptoms in mice

(Medical Xpress) -- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a condition in which people find themselves experiencing intense fear following a traumatic experience due to unrelated circumstances. It’s quite common in soldiers returning from the battlefield but can also be found in people that have experienced an assault, abuse or tragedy such as surviving a hurricane or tornado. And because it can persist for years after the initial trauma, those that suffer from it can find their lives seriously disrupted. Because of this, research into ways to treat the condition has been ongoing by both military and civilian entities. Now, a French team of researchers has found, as they describe in their paper published in Science, a way to induce what appears to be PTSD symptoms in mice. This move could help scientists better understand the chemical processes in the brain in people with the disorder.

To replicate the traumatizing effects of conditions that cause people to experience PTSD, the researchers set a group of mice in a plastic cage. They were subsequently shocked on the feet with an electric probe right after a tone was played. Naturally, this caused them to become conditioned to expect pain upon hearing the tone. To make the experience more heightened, a main component of PTSD, the mice were also given a dose of corticosterone (a stress response hormone) injected directly into their hippocampus right after being shocked. In highly high-stress situations, corticosterone levels in the hippocampus (an area of the brain associated with memory) are naturally higher. In a second experiment, they did precisely the same thing, except they omitted the part where the tone was played before the shock.

In testing the mice afterwards, the dose of corticosterone given after the traumatic event caused confusion about what should be tied to the fear. Some mice who had not heard the tone before the shock displayed fear when hearing it nonetheless.

In a wholly different experiment, the team also attempted to induce PTSD symptoms by restraining the mice inside their cage, causing stress hormones to be released naturally after the tone and shock were administered. They found virtually the same results.

This all suggests, the team writes, that very traumatic and stressful situations cause hormone levels to rise, at least in some mice (and perhaps humans), leading to PTSD.

The team also found in studying the brains of the mice after the experiment that hippocampus activity levels were lower than average while the amygdala, a part of the brain involved in processing and emotional memory, showed more.

More information: Glucocorticoids Can Induce PTSD-Like Memory Impairments in Mice, Published Online February 23 2012, Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1207615

ABSTRACT 
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is characterized by a hypermnesia of the trauma and memory impairment that decreases the ability to restrict fear to the appropriate context. Infusion of glucocorticoids in the hippocampus after fear conditioning induces PTSD-like memory impairments and an altered pattern of neural activation in the hippocampal-amygdalar circuit. Mice cannothttp:// identify the context as the right predictor of the threat and show fear responses for a discrete cue non-predicting the threat in normal conditions. These data demonstrate PTSD-like memory impairments in rodents and identify a potential pathophysiological mechanism of this condition.

© 2011 PhysOrg.com

"Researchers induce PTSD symptoms in mice." February 24th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-ptsd-symptoms-mice.html

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Robert Karl Stonjek

In the genes, but which ones? Earlier studies that linked specific genes to intelligence were largely wrong

Christopher F. Chabris, an assistant professor of psychology at Union College, is the lead author of a new paper that has found, in nearly every case, intelligence could not be linked to a specific gene. “What we want to emphasize is that we are not saying the people who did earlier research in this area were foolish or wrong,” Chabris said. “They were using the best technology they had available." Credit: Christopher F. Chabris

For decades, scientists have understood that there is a genetic component to intelligence, but a new Harvard study has found both that most of the genes thought to be linked to the trait are probably not in fact related to it, and identifying intelligence’s specific genetic roots may still be a long way off.

Led by David I. Laibson ’88, the Robert I. Goldman Professor of Economics, and Christopher F. Chabris ’88, Ph.D. ’99, assistant professor of psychology at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., a team of researchers examined a dozen genes using large data sets that included both intelligence testing and genetic data. As reported in a forthcoming article in the journalPsychological Science, they found that in nearly every case, the hypothesized genetic pathway failed to replicate. In other words, intelligence could not be linked to the specific genes that were tested.

“It is only in the past 10 or 15 years that we have had the technology for people to do studies that involved picking a particular genetic variant and investigating whether people who score higher on intelligence tests tend to have that genetic variant,” said Chabris. “In all of our tests we only found one gene that appeared to be associated with intelligence, and it was a very small effect. This does not mean intelligence does not have a genetic component, it means it’s a lot harder to find the particular genes, or the particular genetic variants, that influence the differences in intelligence.”

To get at the question of how genes influence intelligence, researchers first needed data, and plenty of it.

Though it had long been understood, based on studies of twins, that intelligence was a heritable trait, it wasn’t until relatively recently that the technology emerged to allow scientists to directly probe DNA in a search for genes that affected intelligence.

The problem, Chabris said, was that early technology for assaying genes was very expensive, meaning that such studies were typically limited to, at most, several hundred subjects, who would take IQ tests and provide DNA samples for testing.

As part of their study, Chabris and his colleagues relied on several pre-existing data sets — a massive study of Wisconsin high school graduates that began in the 1950s, the Framingham Heart Study, and an ongoing survey of all twins born in Sweden — to expand that subject pool from a few hundred to many thousands.

“What we want to emphasize is that we are not saying the people who did earlier research in this area were foolish or wrong,” Chabris said. “They were using the best technology they had available. At the time it was believed that individual genes would have a much larger effect  — they were expecting to find genes that might each account for several IQ points.”

To identify genes that might play a role in intelligence, previous researchers used the “candidate gene approach,” which requires identifying a gene that is already linked with a known biological function — such as Alzheimer’s disease or the production of a specific neurotransmitter. If people who scored high on intelligence tests shared a particular variant of that gene, it was believed, that demonstrated the gene’s role in intelligence.

“These were reasonable hypotheses,” said study co-author Daniel J. Benjamin ’99, Ph.D. ’06, assistant professor of economics at Cornell University. “But in retrospect, either the findings were false positives or the effects of the genes are much, much smaller than anyone had anticipated.”

Chabris, however, emphasized that the results don’t point to the idea that the dozen genes examined in the study play no role in intelligence, but rather suggest that intelligence may be tied to many genes and the ways in which they interact.

“As is the case with other traits, like height, there are probably thousands of genes and their variants that are associated with intelligence,” he said. “And there may be other genetic effects beyond the single gene effects – there could be interactions between genes, there could be interactions between genes and the environment. What our results show is that the way researchers have been looking for genes that may be related to intelligence — the candidate gene method — is fairly likely to result in false positives, so other methods should be used.”

Provided by Harvard University

This story is published courtesy of the Harvard Gazette, Harvard University's official newspaper. For additional university news, visitHarvard.edu.

"In the genes, but which ones? Earlier studies that linked specific genes to intelligence were largely wrong." February 24th, 2012.http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-genes-earlier-linked-specific-intelligence.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

12 WAYS TO ENSURE YOU STICK TO YOUR BUDGET

12 Best Tools for Budgeting

Tools you can use to build your annual budget.

Planning for the future is an essential piece to the survival of your business. At the beginning of each year, you should have a sense of where money is going to come in from and where you’re going to spend it. To this end, putting together an annual budget can help you determine whether you have enough money to fund operations, expand the business and generate income. The annual budget process can be an onerous task so here are 12 tools to keep it efficient.

1. Revenue Projection Model
A good place to start the budgeting process is with the Revenue Projection Model.  It is used to forecast business revenues under different conditions. Your budget should reflect the anticipated dollar value of sales and services.  The Revenue Projection Model provides a comprehensive Excel forecasting tool that analyzes and manipulates the price, quantity, and percentage increase to give different possible outcomes. You can customize this tool to meet your company’s needs.  Read More

2. Sales Forecasting Guide
If you have several revenue streams, your budget should include anticipated income from each of them. Categorizing each stream allows you to identify which parts of your business are profitable and which are not. If your business is a start-up, you may not be familiar with creating a sales forecast. This customizable PowerPointpresentation can help educate you and your managers on the process. Read More

3. Sales Forecasting Model
As the saying goes, those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. The Sales Forecasting Model is a form used by companies to predict future sales based on past sales performance and an analysis of expected market conditions. The Sales Forecasting Model is used to organize data that will be used to analyze future sales.Read More

4. Sales Plan Template
Once you have a sales forecast in place you can use the Sales Plan Template to implement the forecast.  The Sales Plan Template is a comprehensive template used by salespersons and organizations for creating a sales plan. The Sales Plan Template includes descriptions for the necessary sections: sales targets, market potential, sales strategy, execution details, budget, sales force compensation, sales force training and a time-line for execution.  Read More

5. Capital Budgeting Analysis with Excel Model
The capital budget helps you figure out how much money you need to put in place new equipment or procedures to launch new products or increase production or services. This budget estimates the value of capital purchases your business needs to grow and increase revenues. If your business involves jobs or projects, budgeting will probably include aspects of both product and service revenue budgeting. The Capital Budgeting Analysis tool can be used to determine the cash flow of a project and how it will contribute to the firm’s value. This tool provides an Excel spreadsheet model and allows you to organize different project metrics, such as payback period, profitability index, internal rate of return, and net present value. Read More

6. Expense Budget
After you figure out how much you are making, you can determine how much you can spend. The Expense Budget is a spreadsheet used to track expenses throughout the calendar year. The Expense Budget lists the most common expense categories and allows you to enter monthly totals, which are then added for an annual total and a monthly average. This document is used on an ongoing basis and is customizable to your company’s usage. 

7.  Twelve Month Cash Flow Spreadsheet Template
A cash flow budget details the amount of cash you collect and pay out. This is generally tallied on a monthly basis and the Twelve-Month Cash Flow Spreadsheet is ideal to use for monthly tracking. In this budget, you track your sales and other receivables from income sources and contrast them against how much you pay to suppliers and in expenses. The Twelve-Month Cash Flow Spreadsheet template provides a comprehensive table in a business plan to evaluate all expenditure categories. A positive cash flow is essential to grow your business.  Read More 

8.  Cash Flow Forecast
To prepare for the inevitable cash flow peaks and troughs that all businesses go through, you can turn to the Cash Flow Forecast tool. It is used to predict annual profits versus end-of-year debt. The Cash Flow Forecast provides a guide for tracking which arms of your business are most profitable, and show which creditors are owed various amounts of the company's future profits. The forecast helps set reasonable goals for the company's next fiscal year. Read More 

9. Depreciation Calculator Spreadsheet
It's a sad fact, but many of the assets you've purchased for your business – computers, machinery, vehicles – have a finite life. In order to account for this – and plan ahead for replacing those assets—you need to calculate the depreciation expense for all your assets. The Depreciation Calculator Spreadsheet contains formulas to help you through the process so you can factor this expense into your budget.  Read More 

10. Asset Depreciation Schedule 
The Asset Depreciation Schedule is used to calculate depreciation expense using straight-line depreciation method. Using this method means the residual (salvage) value of the asset is first estimated. Thereafter the asset, minus salvage value, is divided by the useful life of the asset. The resulting value is deducted for each year of the asset's life. The Asset Depreciation Schedule is divided into major asset categories such as buildings, equipment, hardware, and software. Read More 

11.  12-Month Profit and Loss Projection Worksheet 
This profit and loss (P&L) projection is not intended to be a detailed financial statement. Instead, it's meant to act as a guide to help you forecast your company's sales and expenses. This Profit and Loss Projection Worksheet is used to forecast profits and losses for up to 12 months into the future, making it an ideal tool for yearly budget planning. Read More

12.  Profit and Loss Projection Model 
The Profit and Loss Projection Model is a planning tool to help you to predict sales and cost for the whole year in finer detail than the 12-month worksheet. It is a comprehensive worksheet for monthly and quarterly sales and expenses based on all available data and information.