Sea levels could rise 22 metres

VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF WELLINGTON

Even if we manage to limit global warming to 2°C, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommends, future generations could face sea levels 12 to 22 metres higher than present, according to new research. The research was published today in the journalGeology, by Professor Ken Miller of Rutgers University (New Jersey) and an international team including New Zealander Professor Tim Naish from Victoria University of Wellington. The researchers studied sediment cores in Virginia in the United States, Enewetak Atoll in the Pacific and the Whanganui region of New Zealand. They investigated the late Pliocene epoch — 2.7 million to 3.2 million years ago — which is the last time the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was at its current level, and atmospheric temperatures were two degrees higher than they are now. "We know that global sea levels at this time were higher than present, but estimates have varied from five to over 40 metres higher," says Professor Naish.  He says the team analysed the position of the sea level 3 million years ago and concluded that it was extremely likely — with 95 percent confidence — that sea level peaked 10 to 30 metres above present, with a best estimate of 22 metres. "Whanganui holds one of the world’s best geological archives of global sea-level during the warm climate of the Pliocene and is a key data set in this new study," says Professor Naish, who has been conducting research there for the last 20 years. Professor Naish also led an international team to Antarctica as part of the ANDRILL Project to drill beneath the floor of the Ross Sea in 2006 and discovered that the Antarctic ice sheets retreated significantly during the Pliocene epoch. "What we’re seeing is that the evidence of Antarctic ice sheet collapse is consistent with evidence for sea-level rise in this new study," says Professor Naish. Professor Ken Miller, who led the study, says that sea-level rise would take time. "You don’t need to sell your beach real estate yet, because melting of these large ice sheets will take from centuries to a few thousand years," he says. "The current trajectory for the 21st century global rise of sea level is 2 to 3 feet (0.8 to 1 metre) due to warming of the oceans, partial melting of mountain glaciers, and partial melting of Greenland and Antarctica." Still, says Professor Naish, the study calls into question the sensitivity of the earth’s large ice sheets to temperature change and shows that the natural state of the earth under carbon dioxide already attained in the atmosphere is one with sea levels around 20 metres above present.  "If the present levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are not abated, and humans were to disappear from the planet and return in 2,000 years, they would find a world where the oceans have risen 20 metres," says Professor Naish. Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

Better solar cell developed

FLINDERS UNIVERSITY

Imagine a world where the windows of high-rise office buildings are influential energy producers, offering its inhabitants much more than some fresh air, light and a view. For the past four years, a team of researchers from Flinders University has been working to make this dream a reality – and now the notion of solar-powered windows could be coming to a not-too-distant future near you. As part of his just-completed PhD, Dr Mark Bissett from the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences has developed a revolutionary solar cell using carbon nanotubes. Carbon nanotubes are a promising alternative to traditional silicon-based solar cells, which are cheaper and more efficient than their energy-sapping silicon counterparts. “Solar power is the most expensive type of renewable energy. The silicon solar cells we see on peoples’ roofs are costly to produce and use a lot of electricity to purify,” Dr Bissett said. “The overall efficiency of silicon solar cells is about 10 per cent, and even when they’re operating at optimal efficiency, it could take eight to 15 years to make back the energy that it took to produce them in the first place because they’re produced using fossil fuels,” he said. Dr Bissett said the new, low-cost carbon nanotubes are transparent, meaning they can be 'sprayed' onto windows without blocking light, and they are also flexible so they can be weaved into a range of materials. One is fabric – a concept already being explored by advertising companies. While the amount of power generated by solar windows would not be enough to completely offset the energy consumption of a standard office building, Dr Bissett said they still had many financial and environmental advantages. “In a new building, or one where the windows are being replaced anyway, adding transparent solar cells to the glass would be a relatively small cost since the cost of the glass, frames, and installation would be the same with or without the solar component,” Dr Bissett said. “It’s basically like tinting the windows except they’re able to produce electricity, and considering office buildings don’t have a lot of roof space for solar panels, it makes sense to utilise the many windows they have instead.” Dr Bissett said the technology mimics photosynthesis, the process whereby plants obtain energy from the sun. “A solar cell is created by taking two sheets of electrically conductive glass and sandwiching a layer of functionalised single-walled carbon nanotubes between the glass sheets,” he said. “When light shines on the cell, electrons are generated within the carbon nanotubes, which can be used to power electrical devices.” Although small prototypes have been developed in the lab, he said the next step would be to test the carbon cells on an 'industrial stage'. The material could be on the market within 10 years if all goes to plan. “When we first started the research, we had no idea if it would work because we were the first in the world to try it, so it’s pretty exciting that we’ve proved the concept, and hopefully, it will be commercially available in a few years,” Dr Bissett said. Dr Bissett is a winner of Flinders's inaugural Best Student Paper Award, a now annual program which aims to recognise excellence in student research across the University. Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

Friendly to a fault, yet tense: Personality traits traced in brain

The severity of abnormalities in the insula (red structure near bottom of brain), gray matter volume (left) and brain activity (right) predicted the extent of aberrant personality traits in Williams syndrome patients -- as reflected in their scores (red dots) on personality rating scales (WSPP). Credit: Karen Berman, M.D., NIMH Clinical Brain Disorders Branch

A personality profile marked by overly gregarious yet anxious behaviour is rooted in the abnormal development of a circuit hub buried deep in the front centre of the brain, say scientists at the National Institutes of Health. They used three different types of brain imaging to pinpoint the suspect brain area in people with Williams syndrome, a rare genetic disorder characterised by these behaviours. Matching the scans to scores on a personality rating scale revealed that the more an individual with Williams syndrome showed these personality/temperament traits, the more abnormalities there were in the brain structure, called the insula.

"Scans of the brain's tissue composition, wiring, and activity produced converging evidence of genetically-caused abnormalities in the structure and function of the front part of the insula and in its connectivity to other brain areas in the circuit," explained Karen Berman, M.D., of the NIH's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

Berman, Drs. Mbemda Jabbi, Shane Kippenham, and colleagues, report on their imaging study in Williams syndrome online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"This line of research offers insight into how genes help to shape brain circuitry that regulates complex behaviors – such as the way a person responds to others – and thus holds promise for unraveling brain mechanisms in other disorders of social behavior," said NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel, M.D.

Long distance connections, white matter, between the insula and other brain parts are aberrant in Williams syndrome. Neuronal fibers of normal controls (left) extend further than those of Williams syndrome patients (right). Picture shows diffusion tensor imaging data from each patient superimposed on the anatomical MRI of the median patient. Credit: Karen Berman, M.D., NIMH Clinical Brain Disorders Branch

Williams syndrome is caused by the deletion of some 28 genes, many involved in brain development and behavior, in a particular section of chromosome 7. Among deficits characteristic of the syndrome are a lack of visual-spatial ability – such as is required to assemble a puzzle – and a tendency to be overly-friendly with people, while overly anxious about non-social matters, such as spiders or heights. Many people with the disorder are also mentally challenged and learning disabled, but some have normal IQs.

Previous imaging studies by the NIMH researchers found abnormal tracts of the neuronal fibers that conduct long-distance communications between brain regions -- likely resulting from neurons migrating to the wrong destinations during early development.

Evidence suggests that genes influence our temperament and the development of mental disorders via effects on brain circuits that regulate behavior. Yet direct demonstration of this in humans has proven elusive. Since the genetic basis of Williams syndrome is well known, it offers a unique opportunity to explore such effects with neuroimaging, reasoned the researchers.

Although the insula had not previously been studied in such detail in the disorder, it was known to be related to brain circuitry and certain behaviors, such as empathy, which is also highly prominent in the disorder. Berman and colleagues hypothesized that the insula's anatomy, function and connectivity would predict patients' scores for Williams syndrome-associated traits on personality rating scales. Fourteen intellectually normal Williams syndrome participants and 23 healthy controls participated in the study.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed that patients had decreased gray matter – the brain's working tissue – in the bottom front of the insula, which integrates mood and thinking. By contrast, they had increased gray matter in the top front part of the insula, which has been linked to social/emotional processes.

Diffusion tensor imaging, which by detecting the flow of water in nerve fibers can identify and measure the connections between brain areas, showed reduced white matter – the brain's long-distance wiring – between thinking and emotion hubs.

Tracking radioactively-tagged water in order to measure brain blood flow at rest, via positron emission tomography (PET), exposed activity aberrations consistent with the MRI abnormalities. The PET scans also revealed altered functional coupling between the front of the insula and key structures involved in thinking, mood and fear processing. These structural and functional abnormalities in the front of the insula correlated with the Williams syndrome personality profile.

"Our findings illustrate how brain systems translate genetic vulnerability into behavioral traits" explained Berman.

More information: The Williams syndrome chromosome 7q11.23 hemideletion confers hypersocial, anxious personality coupled with altered insula structure and function. Jabbi M, Kippenhan JS, Kohn P, Marenco S, Mervis CB, Morris CA, Meyer-Lindenberg A, Berman KF. Proc Natl Acad Sci. 2012 Mar 12. [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 22411788

Provided by National Institutes of Health

"Friendly to a fault, yet tense: Personality traits traced in brain." March 20th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-friendly-fault-tense-personality-traits.html

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Publication bias involving psychiatric medications may provide physicians with an incomplete picture

Physicians who prescribe antipsychotic medications may be basing their decisions on incomplete information, according to new research published by scientists at Oregon Health & Science University. The study is published in PLoS Medicine, a peer-reviewed open-access journal published by the Public Library of Science.

This latest research follows a highly publicized 2008 report in the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrating that antidepressant drug trials were selectively published, exaggerating their apparent effectiveness. This follow-up study suggests that similar concerns exist, though to a somewhat lesser extent, with antipsychotic drugs.

The authors reached these conclusions by reviewing 24 FDA-registered premarketing trials for eight second-generation antipsychotics—aripiprazole (Abilify), iloperidone (Fanapt), olanzapine (Zyprexa), paliperidone (Invega), quetiapine (Seroquel), risperidone (Risperdal), risperidone long-acting injection (Consta), and ziprasidone (Geodon). They then compared the results in the FDA's review documents to the results presented to clinicians and researchers in medical journals.

The authors found that four premarketing trials submitted to the FDA remained unpublished and that all of them yielded unflattering results. Three showed the new antipsychotic had no significant advantage over placebo. In the fourth, the drug was superior to placebo, but it was significantly inferior to a much less expensive competing drug.

In the published trials, there was some evidence that the journal articles over-emphasized efficacy of the new drug. For example, an FDA review revealed that one of the newer drugs, iloperidone (Fanapt), was statistically inferior to three different competing drugs, but this information was not mentioned in the corresponding journal articles.

On the other hand, when the authors used meta-analysis to combine trial data and compare all eight drugs to placebo, they found that publication bias had little impact on the drugs' overall apparent efficacy. This stood in contrast to the researchers' previous study on antidepressants, for which publication bias had a much more substantial impact.

"When you compare between drug classes and use FDA data, it's clear that, overall, antipsychotics are more effective than antidepressants. But when you rely on the data in medical journals, the difference between these two drug classes is obscured," said Erick Turner, M.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and the Department of Pharmacology in the OHSU School of Medicine. Turner also serves as a staff psychiatrist at the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center's Mood Disorders Program.

The authors wrote in the paper, "Publication bias can blur distinctions between effective and ineffective drugs."

The authors concluded: "With further studies investigating publication bias in other drug classes, a more accurate evidence base can emerge."

More information: Turner EH, Knoepflmacher D, Shapley L (2012) Publication Bias in Antipsychotic Trials: An Analysis of Efficacy Comparing the Published Literature to the US Food and Drug Administration Database. PLoS Med 9(3): e1001189. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001189 .http://www.plosmed … pmed.1001189

Provided by Oregon Health & Science University

"Publication bias involving psychiatric medications may provide physicians with an incomplete picture." March 20th, 2012.http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-bias-involving-psychiatric-medications-physicians.html

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What was B.F. Skinner really like? A new study parses his traits

March 20th marks the birthday of famed behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner, who would have turned 108 today. Besides Sigmund Freud, B.F. Skinner was the most famous and perhaps the most influential psychologist of the 20th century. But his own "radical behaviorism"—the idea that behavior is caused solely by environmental factors, never by thoughts or feelings—made him a magnet of controversy, which grew even more intense with the publication of his best-known book, Beyond Freedom & Dignity.

"He was looked at as beyond the pale by a lot of other psychologists, including me," says Dean Keith Simonton, a psychologist at the University of California Davis, who was a graduate student at Harvard when Skinner taught there. Some even called Skinner a fascist for his radical views of human malleability. But, says Simonton, "people who knew him would also say, 'You really should talk to Skinner, because he's a much broader, more open person than you think.'"

Who was B.F. Skinner? University of Oslo psychologists Geir Overskeid and Cato Grønnerød, along with Simonton, used a variety of source material plus an instrument that scores people on five major personality factors, to describe him and compare him with other eminent scientists. The study, which appears in Perspectives in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science, reveals a complex man—but nothing like the monster his detractors called him.

To draw an objective picture of Skinner, the psychologists first combed through published sources both biographical and autobiographical, archival material, and sketches written by people who knew him. From these they culled 118 descriptive words and phrases, from "fanatic" to "afraid of the police." Five raters blind to the subject's identity categorized each descriptor under the Big Five traits that psychologists use to describe personality—Openness, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Extroversion, and Neuroticism—and assigned to the descriptor a degree from -2 to +2. The authors chose the 81 descriptors on which four of the five raters agreed; there was almost complete agreement as to degree.

The results: Skinner was highly conscientious—scoring 1.8—working tirelessly and meticulously toward ambitious goals. Indeed, he wrote that he aimed to remake the "entire field of psychology" and viewed relaxation as dangerous. And those Harvard students were right about Skinner's openness to experience. Besides being a psychologist, he painted, wrote a novel, played saxophone and piano, and enjoyed all kinds of music. He was also somewhat neurotic and extroverted: known as charming, funny—and a womanizer.

In many respects, Skinner's is the profile of an eminent scientist—for his drive and discipline, creative versatility, and also for his neuroticism, a trait shared by as many as 45% of leading scientists, according to one analysis. What the profile does not represent: an evil authoritarian. "This article makes Skinner more human," says Simonton—not just a "consolidation" of traits but also an array of nuanced detail. Though objective, it's not "a polarizing treatment. You don't have to love or hate him."

Provided by Association for Psychological Science

"What was B.F. Skinner really like? A new study parses his traits." March 20th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-bf-skinner-parses-traits.html

Comment:
'Fred' to his friends...

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Robert Karl Stonjek

'Anti-alcoholism' drug clears key test hurdle

A drug designed to treat nervous spasms has cleared an important early test in a project to see whether it can also cure alcoholism, French doctors said on Tuesday.

Baclofen -- the lab name for a medication branded as Kemstro, Lioresal and Gablofen -- was successful in a preliminary test among a small group of alcoholics, a result that opens the way to formal clinical trials, they said.

The history of the drug goes back 50 years. It was originally designed for epilepsy before becoming licensed to treat spasticity, but researchers are now interested in using it to ease alcoholic craving.

Interest was sparked in 2008 by a book, Le Dernier Verre (The Last Glass), by cardiologist Olivier Ameisen, who self-treated his alcoholism with high doses of baclofen.

The new test entailed enrolling 132 heavy drinkers who were given baclofen at high doses over a year.

Eighty percent either became abstinent or became moderate drinkers. By comparison, two drugs that are commonly used to treat alcoholics, naltrexon and acamprosate, yield a success rate of 20-25 percent.

Side effects included fatigue, drowsiness, insomnia, dizziness and digestive troubles.

Lead researcher Philippe Jaury of the University of Paris-Descartes said the outcome opened the door to one-year clinical trials, expected to start in May, in which 320 alcoholics would be divided into two groups.

One batch will receive baclofen, progressively building in dosage until the craving symptoms subside, while the others will receive an inactive lookalike pill, or placebo.

France's health system is paying 750,000 euros ($469,000) of the 1.2-million-euro ($1.45-million) cost of the trial, and an unidentified donor is paying the rest, Jaury told AFP.

The pre-trial study is published in a specialist journal, Alcohol and Alcoholism.

(c) 2012 AFP

"'Anti-alcoholism' drug clears key test hurdle." March 20th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-anti-alcoholism-drug-key-hurdle.html

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Sai...............................Mere Sai Mere Baba..Lucky Punjabi.King...

Top 20 Common Job Search Strategies:

Ready for the big game? An athlete prepares for months, even years, with a rigorous training schedule, healthy eating, keeping focused on the end result – the win. Perhaps you need to put your “play book” together and create a career action plan.

1. Network, network, network then network some more. Network using all tools available (personal network, LinkedIn, User Groups, Internet, attending industry events) etc. Tell everyone you meet you are looking for a job.

2. Build a solid resume—fill in gaps, call out successes, relay your value add, and customize it to cater to the job you are interviewing for. Resumes are like a painter’s canvas, there are no two paintings alike. You may take a class—how to interview, how to sell yourself, how to write a winning resume.

3. Build a skills inventory: Candidates need to know themselves and then know how to present themselves.

4. Have a clear idea why you are looking and what your short-term goals are. Clearly understand your long-term goals. Do they make sense with your short-term goals?

5. Do research on the company, position and person you are interviewing with inside and out before you interview. 
Cross-reference every lead you get with your network. For example, if you see a great looking job at XYZ Company, check your personal and LinkedIn networks to see if you know of anyone who works at XYZ Company. If so, they often can give you valuable insight into the company and job.
If you know someone who works at a company you are interviewing with, spend some time with them before you interview.

6. Be passionate and persistent. Be yourself and show enthusiasm.

7. Practice interviewing, get feedback, and revise your interview strategy. If you know any recruiters or managers who regularly interview prospective new employees, ask them to give you a mock interview and take their feedback on your résumé and your interview style. This will improve your confidence and performance in real interview situations.

8. Dress professionally and act professionally. Remember, everything counts!

9. Spend time preparing answers to questions that you can reasonably expect to be asked in an interview.

10. Think before answering a question: Take a breath, and then answer the question. This will help you digest the question and have a stronger answer, or ask a qualifying question back before answering the question.

11. Ask questions. You need to interview the company just as much as they need to interview you. Build a list of questions about the position you are interviewing for. If you don’t ask questions, you seem uninterested. The first question out of your mouth should not be about money. Seem interested in the company and the opportunity.

12. Don’t bring up bad experiences or bad-mouth past employers.

13. Don’t be negative. The interview process is slow and frustrating. Don’t let this shake you up.

14. Don’t be a name dropper.

15. Listen and engage: Don’t just talk in the interview.

16. Smile and have good eye contact.

17. Be positive and honest. Don’t try to answer interview question with the answers you think the interviewer wants to hear. Be yourself and be honest. Don’t exaggerate.

18. Build a strong list of references: Ask your reference, before you offer their name, if they would be able to provide a positive reference that would help you secure your next position.

19. At the end of the interview, ask the question, “Do you have any questions or concerns that would stop you from bringing me back for a second interview?”

20. Send follow-up thank-you notes outlining why you feel you are qualified and ask for the job.

That's, like, super cooool

Heather Littlefield, the head adviser for the linguistics program the College of Science, explains why young women have become know as bellwethers for vocal trends and popular slang. Credit: Mike Mazzanti.

A study published in December in theJournal of Voice found that female college students have popularized a linguistic fad called “vocal fry,” which has been described as a “guttural fluttering of the vocal chords” with a “lazy, drawn-out effect.” Northeastern University news office asked Heather Littlefield, the head adviser for the linguistics program in the College of Science, to explain why young women have become known as bellwethers for vocal trends and popular slang.  

Pop singer Britney Spears, reality TV star Kim Kardashian and New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson are all famous for frying their words. Why have women in general — and young women in particular — become known as linguistic innovators? 

This is an interesting question and the answer is quite complex. In fact, we’re still working on understanding this. But one main reason is undoubtedly related to women’s general social status relative to men. Women need to use the currency that is available to them to obtain social status. So while physical strength, political power and money may not be as accessible to women to shape and affect their world to the same degree as men, language is. So they use this tool to their best advantage. Then, because it is an effective tool, others begin to adopt it.

But we should keep in mind two things. First, that there seem to be contexts in which women are more linguistically conservative. For example, when women marry and begin to have families, there is a trend that they uphold the “standard” forms for the language more than men. (For most of us, it was our mothers who corrected our grammar and made sure we didn’t swear).

Second, that while these tools can be very useful, they are still seen in a negative light by most speakers of the language. Take, for example, the use of “like,” which has several different meanings. These new ways of using “like” are very useful, and in fact these patterns of use have spread to other languages. But everyone makes fun of it and denigrates it, even if we all use it.

The Valley Girls of the 1980s popularized uptalk, a speech pattern in which statements are pronounced like questions. But 20 years later, both grandparents and American presidents alike began adopting the vocal pattern. What can you learn about an individual or a group of people by studying vocal trends?  

We can see that language is really a tool to be manipulated by its speakers. When we study a speaker or group of speakers, we can examine their language patterns to try to see what’s important to them. Because the use of language is largely subconscious, it reflects what speakers really believe and want, which can sometimes be different from what they say they believe and want. Linguistic patterns can be very useful for this type of study, but again, it can be very challenging to fully work out such complex patterns and why they occur.

How have text messaging and social networking sites such as Twitter influenced language trends and styles?

This is a new field of study, and we are just beginning to identify some of the trends and styles.  For instance, it seems like young children have a better sense of phonics because they often type things phonetically rather than with the standard orthography (writing “LOL” instead of “laugh out loud”). And of course, some new lexical items come from these domains, so people can now say “LOL,” and we have new verbs, such as “to friend” and “to text.” But overall, it looks like these technologies use a combination of the features of oral and written discourse; it seems unlikely that they will have a deep impact on changing the language. These technologies are really just tools for using language.

Think about the advent of the printing press or the telephone or TV; these were all new tools for the spread of language, but the core structures of the language didn’t change because of them.  There were, of course, introductions of new words to talk about the technologies, but there wasn’t any deep structural change to the language itself because of these new tools.

Provided by Northeastern University

"That's, like, super cooool." March 16th, 2012. http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-super-cooool.html

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Robert Karl Stonjek

Antipsychotic drug combinations are often given to patients early in treatment

Patients with schizophrenia and other mental illnesses are commonly prescribed high-dose combinations of antipsychotic drugs earlier than recommended by some guidelines, finds a new study in the March issue of General Hospital Psychiatry.

Antipsychotic polypharmacy (APP) is the co-prescription of more than one antipsychotic drug for one patient. APP is not unusual, but there is scarce evidence about how these drugs interact and whether combining them increases the risk of chronic side effects such as diabetes.

"The use of multiple antipsychotic drugs has become a common practice mostly based on practitioners' own experiences. That's because only a few published studies show contradictory outcomes," said lead author Amaia López de Torre, PharmD, with Galdakao-Usansolo Hospital, Galdakao in Spain. She said that until further clinical trials are available, practitioners should be aware of potential adverse effects and interactions derived from APP, especially in elderly patients.

Thomas N. Wise, M.D., professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and chairman of Inova Fairfax Hospital's department of psychiatry, said, "The study is excellent, and relevant and transfers to our experiences too, that antipsychotic drugs are often given in combination."

The researchers collected data over one day when 201 patients were admitted to the Hospital Psiquiatrico de Alava, a psychiatric hospital in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. Of the 201 patients, 172 patients had been prescribed antipsychotics. 47 per cent of those patients were prescribed more than one drug. Four of the most common two-drug combinations had no supporting clinical evidence for their use. The researchers could find no supporting data for three-drug combinations which were prescribed to 19 patients. Moreover, 12 patients were prescribed drug combinations with known negative interactions.

The authors explained several possible rationales for APP. For example, prescribing lower doses of different drugs may relieve symptoms with fewer side effects than when a higher-dose single drug, or monotherapy, is used. The researchers also concluded that obtaining detailed patient histories, informed consent from patients/representatives and careful drug and side-effect monitoring is recommended before and following polypharmacy treatment.

Wise cautioned, "There is a myth that monotherapy may be a better approach than giving a combination of antipsychotic drugs to a patient. That may be true in an ideal world. Still, in the real world, where treatment efficacy and effectiveness are mandatory, a combination of drugs is often necessary because each has different properties."

More information: Querejazu, A.L., et al. (2012). Antipsychotic polypharmacy: a needle in a haystack? General Hospital Psychiatry.

Provided by Health Behavior News Service

"Antipsychotic drug combinations are often given to patients early in treatment." March 16th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-antipsychotic-drug-combinations-patients-early.html

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Robert Karl Stonjek

The next decade of mental health drugs

Numb. Credit: Ten Thirty Nine from Flickr.

Academics advocate for changes to how we development better treatments for mental health.

Leading international academics are advocating for new approaches to drug development for mental health diseases.  Their comment article, published today (15 March) in the journal Nature, highlights the critical lack of new treatments for mental health disorders, to include Alzheimer’s, depression, and schizophrenia.

Professor Barbara Sahakian, of the Department of Psychiatry and MRC/Wellcome Trust Behavioral and Clinical Neuroscience Institute at the University of Cambridge, and Dr. Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health in the United States, were leaders on the comment piece after a Royal Society meeting held to address the ‘pharmacological impasse’ concluded that the lack of viable new treatments ‘calls for a fundamental change in nearly every aspect of translational research in mental health’.

Despite nearly 40% of the population being affected by mental health issues, which includes everything from depression and dementia to anxiety and schizophrenia, the researchers say there is a crisis in the development of new treatments for these disorders.

Professor Sahakian explains part of the problem, “The pharmaceutical industry has in part withdrawn, either because they struggled to translate research into a viable drug or because of financial pressures.  Although some have remained, there are still insufficient resources being focused on diseases which affect a disproportionate percentage of the population.”

In the comment article, they cite genetics as providing fertile ground for drug exploration, highlighting the impact it has had on other medical treatments. Additionally, they propose having academics investigate compounds industry has abandoned.

Professor Sahakian added, “We need to reassess how we identify and validate new drugs, and should consider open access drug development which involves both industry and academia.”

Previous research has shown that mental disorders disproportionately affect the young, with 75% of illnesses having onset before the age of 24.  As a result, the academics also advocate for earlier intervention and preventative therapies.

But not all of the new treatments they advocate are pharmacological.  They highlight the effectiveness of treatments which integrate medications and psychosocial approaches.  Novel approaches could include the use of emerging technology such as the use of video games to help children with autism interact socially by increasing eye contact.

Provided by University of Cambridge

"The next decade of mental health drugs." March 16th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-decade-mental-health-drugs.html

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New tools to answer timeless questions

Alan Jasanoff. Credit: Allegra Boverman

After finishing his PhD in molecular biophysics, Alan Jasanoff decided to veer away from that field and try looking into some of the biggest questions in neuroscience: How do we perceive things? What happens in our brains when we make decisions?

After a few months, however, he realized that he didn’t have the tools he wanted to use — so he decided to start making his own.

Jasanoff, who recently earned tenure in MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering, now specializes in developing novel brain-imaging agents that can reveal information more detailed than other human brain-imaging techniques such as fMRI and PET, and more comprehensive than traditional neuroscience measurements such as microscopy and electrode recordings. With the new tools, he is also beginning to explore some of the fundamental questions that first drew him into neuroscience.

Neuroscientists commonly use fMRI, which measures blood flow in the brain, as a proxy for neural activity. In the past several years, Jasanoff has developed sensors that can be used with fMRI to image brain activity more directly, by measuring levels of neurotransmitters (the chemicals that carry messages between neurons) and calcium, which enters neurons when they fire.

Using those sensors, Jasanoff has started exploring how positive reinforcement influences behavior and decision making in animals. His work could also be applicable to fields outside of neuroscience, because intracellular signaling molecules such as calcium “are really ubiquitous — not just in neuronal signaling but signaling throughout the body, during development, immune-cell activity and so on,” says Jasanoff, who is an associate member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research and an associate professor of biological engineering, nuclear science and engineering, and brain and cognitive sciences.

[Video at the Website]

‘Timeless questions’

As a teenager, Jasanoff had a strong interest in science and two role models for a career in academia — his parents, both social scientists. Jasanoff spent his childhood first in Cambridge, Mass., where his father taught at Harvard University, then Ithaca, N.Y., where both parents were professors at Cornell University. His parents, Jay and Sheila Sen Jasanoff, have since returned to Harvard. “My sister Maya is also a professor at Harvard, so I’m the black sheep,” Jasanoff jokes.

While a senior in high school, Jasanoff got his start in science with a part-time job washing test tubes in a lab at Cornell. “That wasn’t a very technically sophisticated job, but I occasionally would hit up the local grad students and postdocs for slightly more scientific insight into what was going on,” he says.

As an undergraduate at Harvard, Jasanoff studied biochemical sciences and had a strong interest in structural biology, using the techniques of X-ray crystallography and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to study molecules far too small to examine with the naked eye. “I like molecules,” he says, adding, “My mother always says it’s an outgrowth of my fascination with LEGO.”

He stayed at Harvard to get his PhD in biophysics, then went to MIT’s Whitehead Institute to begin independent research as a Whitehead Fellow. With a growing interest in some of the “timeless questions” of neuroscience, he began working on molecular-level neuroimaging — trading the relative predictability of structural biology for the complexity of a field “famous among many for its unanswerable questions,” he says.

Direct measurements

Functional MRI, or fMRI, currently one of the best ways to try to address those questions, provides an indirect view of what’s happening inside the brain, and can only reveal average activity in large regions. Meanwhile, traditional neuroscience techniques such as optical imaging provide a precise record of activity at the cellular level but cannot be done non-invasively over large areas of the brain.

Jasanoff wanted to find a way to have the best of both worlds — imaging large brain regions non-invasively, but with cellular precision.

He spent several years as a postdoc trying to achieve that in flies, until he realized that to be successful, he would have to develop his own molecular tools. “I tried one after another failed or weak experiments,” he recalls. “I sort of hoped there were off-the-shelf chemicals and reagents that could be useful for this, and that was probably foolhardy.”

Since joining the MIT faculty in 2004, Jasanoff has developed sensors that can be used with fMRI to monitor the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin, as well as calcium and other signaling molecules. The sensors, which currently can only be used in animals, include a section that binds to the target molecule, as well as a magnetic component that allows them to become visible with MRI.

Dopamine holds great interest for neuroscientists because of its role in reward, addiction and neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease. Jasanoff’s lab is now focusing on the role of rewards, or positive reinforcement of behavior, in decision making.

“This is one of the areas of neuroscience where I think we can make a difference relatively soon, just because we’ve got the tools for it,” Jasanoff says. “We’re also hard at work on sensors for a range of other molecular targets; our vision is to have a whole set of these probes available for ‘dissecting’ multiple aspects of neural function in living, intact brains.”

Provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology

This story is republished courtesy of MIT News (http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/), a popular site that covers news about MIT research, innovation and teaching.

"New tools to answer timeless questions." March 16th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-tools-timeless.html

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