Crime and punishment: The neurobiological roots of modern justice

 
A pair of neuroscientists from Vanderbilt and Harvard propose that five specific areas in the brain have been repurposed by evolution to enable third party punishment, which makes human prosociality possible. Credit: Rene Marois, Deborah Brewingtons / Vanderbilt University

A pair of neuroscientists from Vanderbilt and Harvard Universities have proposed the first neurobiological model for third-party punishment. It outlines a collection of potential cognitive and brain processes that evolutionary pressures could have re-purposed to make this behaviour possible.

The willingness of people to punish others who lie, cheat, steal or violate other social norms, even when they weren't harmed and don't stand to benefit personally, is distinctly human behaviour. There is scant evidence that other animals, even other primates, behave in this "I punish you because you harmed him" fashion. Although this behaviour – called third-party punishment – has long been institutionalized in human legal systems, and economists have identified it as one of the key factors that can explain the exceptional degree of cooperation that exists in human society, it is a new subject for neuroscience.

In a paper published online on April 15 by the journal Nature Neuroscience, a pair of neuroscientists from Vanderbilt and Harvard universities propose the first neurobiological model for third-party punishment. The model outlines a collection of potential cognitive and brain processes that evolutionary pressures could have repurposed to make this behavior possible.

"The concepts of survival of the fittest or the selfish gene that the public generally associates with evolution are incomplete," said René Marois, associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt, who co-authored the paper with Joshua Buckholtz, assistant professor of psychology at Harvard. "Prosociality – voluntary behavior intended to benefit other people even when they are not kin – does not necessarily confer genetic benefits directly on specific individuals but it creates a stable society that improves the overall survival of the group's offspring."

One of the underlying mental abilities that allows humans to establish large-scale cooperation between genetically unrelated individuals is the capability to create, transmit and enforce social norms, widely shared sentiments about what constitutes appropriate behavior. These norms take a variety of forms, ranging from culturally specific standards of behavior (such as "thou shall greet an acquaintance of the opposite sex with a kiss on each cheek") to universal standards that vary in strength in different cultures (such as "thou shalt not commit adultery") to universal norms that are so widely held that that they are codified into laws (such as "thou shalt not kill").

"Scientists have advanced several models to explain the widespread cooperation that is characteristic of human society, but these generally fail to explain the emergence of our large stable societies" said Marois.

One model holds that individuals will perform altruistic actions when they benefit his or her kin and increase the likelihood of transmitting genes that they share to future generations. However, it doesn't explain why individuals cooperate with people who do not share their genes.

"You scratch my back and I'll scratch your back" is the essence of another model called reciprocal altruism or direct reciprocity. It argues that when two people interact repeatedly they have a mutual self-interest in cooperating. Although this can explain cooperation among unrelated people, scientists have found that it only works in relatively small groups.

Similarly, theories of indirect reciprocity, which focus on the benefits an individual gains by maintaining a good reputation through altruistic behavior, cannot account for the widespread emergence of cooperation because the benefits that individuals accrue through one-shot altruistic interactions are negligible.

There is one class of models, however, that has been successful in explaining the maintenance of cooperation among genetically unrelated individuals. According to these strong reciprocity models, individuals will reward norm-followers or punish norm-violators even at a cost to themselves (altruistic punishment).

Strong reciprocity models, like the other models mentioned above, have primarily been developed to account for second-party interactions. While second-party interactions may prevail in non-human primate and small human societies, there is evidence that the evolution of our large-scale societies hinged on a different, and more characteristically human form of interaction, namely third-party punishment ("I punish you because you harmed him").

The codification of social norms into laws and the institutionalization of third-party punishment "is arguably one of the most important developments in human culture," the paper states.

According to the researchers' model, which is based on the latest behavioral, cognitive and neuro-scientific data, third-party punishment grew out of second-party punishment and is implemented by a collection of cognitive processes that evolved to serve other functions but were co-opted to make third-party punishment possible.

In the modern criminal justice system, judges and jury members – impartial third-party decision-makers – are tasked to evaluate the severity of a criminal act, the mental state of the accused and the amount of harm done, and then integrate these evaluations with the applicable legal codes and select the most appropriate punishment from available options. Based on recent brain mapping studies, Buckholtz and Marois propose a cascade of brain events that take place to support the cognitive processes involved in third-party punishment decision-making. Specifically, they have localized these processes to five distinct areas in the brain – two in the frontal cortex, which is involved in higher mental functions; the amygdala deep in the brain that is associated with emotional responses; and two areas in the back of the brain that are involved in social evaluation and response selection.

According to Buckholtz and Marois' model, punishment decisions are preceded by the evaluation of the actions and mental intentions of the criminal defendant in a social evaluation network comprised of the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ).

While it is often assumed that legal decision-making is purely based on rational thinking, research suggests that much of the motivation for punishing is driven by negative emotional responses to the harm. This signal appears to be generated in the amygdala, causing people to factor in their emotional state when making decisions instead of making solely factual judgments.

Next, the decision-maker must integrate his or her evaluation of the norm-violator's mental state and the amount of harm with the specific set of punishment options. The researchers propose that the medial prefrontal cortex, which is centrally located and has connections to all the other key areas, acts as a hub that brings all this information together and passes it to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), where the final decision is made with the input from another rear-brain area called the intraparietal sulcus, involved in selecting the appropriate punishment response. As such, the DLPFC may be at the apex of the neural hierarchy involved in deciding on the appropriate punishments that should be given to specific norm violations.

The current model focuses on the role of punishment in encouraging large-scale human cooperation, but the researchers recognize that reward and positive reinforcement are also powerful psychological forces that encourage both short-term and long-term cooperation.

Marois adds: "It is somewhat ironic that while punishment, or the threat of punishment, is thought to play a foundational role in the evolution of our large-scale societies, much research in developmental psychology demonstrates the immense power of positive reinforcement in shaping a young individual's behavior." Understanding how both reward and punishment work should therefore provide fundamental insights into the nature of human cooperative behavior. "The ultimate 'pot of gold at the end of the rainbow' here is to promote a criminal justice system that is not only fairer, but also less necessary," said Marois.

This work is the latest contribution of Vanderbilt researchers to the newly emerging field of neurolaw and was supported by the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience, directed by Owen Jones, New York Alumni Chancellor's Chair in Law and professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt.

Provided by Vanderbilt University

"Crime and punishment: The neurobiological roots of modern justice." April 18th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-crime-neurobiological-roots-modern-justice.html

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Robert Karl Stonjek

New study sheds light on how selective hearing works in the brain

 
The longstanding mystery of how selective hearing works – how people can tune in to a single speaker while tuning out their crowded, noisy environs – is solved this week in the journal Nature by two scientists from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

Psychologists have known for decades about the so-called "cocktail party effect," a name that evokes the Mad Men era in which it was coined. It is the remarkable human ability to focus on a single speaker in virtually any environment—a classroom, sporting event or coffee bar—even if that person's voice is seemingly drowned out by a jabbering crowd.

To understand how selective hearing works in the brain, UCSF neurosurgeon Edward Chang, MD, a faculty member in the UCSF Department of Neurological Surgery and the Keck Center for Integrative Neuroscience, and UCSF postdoctoral fellow Nima Mesgarani, PhD, worked with three patients who were undergoing brain surgery for severe epilepsy.

Part of this surgery involves pinpointing the parts of the brain responsible for disabling seizures. The UCSF epilepsy team finds those locales by mapping the brain's activity over a week, with a thin sheet of up to 256 electrodes placed under the skull on the brain's outer surface or cortex. These electrodes record activity in the temporal lobe—home to the auditory cortex.

UCSF is one of few leading academic epilepsy centers where these advanced intracranial recordings are done, and, Chang said, the ability to safely record from the brain itself provides unique opportunities to advance our fundamental knowledge of how the brain works.

"The combination of high-resolution brain recordings and powerful decoding algorithms opens a window into the subjective experience of the mind that we've never seen before," Chang said.

In the experiments, patients listened to two speech samples played to them simultaneously in which different phrases were spoken by different speakers. They were asked to identify the words they heard spoken by one of the two speakers.

The authors then applied new decoding methods to "reconstruct" what the subjects heard from analyzing their brain activity patterns. Strikingly, the authors found that neural responses in the auditory cortex only reflected those of the targeted speaker. They found that their decoding algorithm could predict which speaker and even what specific words the subject was listening to based on those neural patterns. In other words, they could tell when the listener's attention strayed to another speaker.

"The algorithm worked so well that we could predict not only the correct responses, but also even when they paid attention to the wrong word," Chang said.

SPEECH RECOGNITION BY THE HUMAN BRAIN AND MACHINES

The new findings show that the representation of speech in the cortex does not just reflect the entire external acoustic environment but instead just what we really want or need to hear.

They represent a major advance in understanding how the human brain processes language, with immediate implications for the study of impairment during aging, attention deficit disorder, autism and language learning disorders.

In addition, Chang, who is also co-director of the Center for Neural Engineering and Prostheses at UC Berkeley and UCSF, said that we may someday be able to use this technology for neuroprosthetic devices for decoding the intentions and thoughts from paralyzed patients that cannot communicate.

Revealing how our brains are wired to favor some auditory cues over others may even inspire new approaches toward automating and improving how voice-activated electronic interfaces filter sounds in order to properly detect verbal commands.

How the brain can so effectively focus on a single voice is a problem of keen interest to the companies that make consumer technologies because of the tremendous future market for all kinds of electronic devices with voice-active interfaces. While the voice recognition technologies that enable such interfaces as Apple's Siri have come a long way in the last few years, they are nowhere near as sophisticated as the human speech system.

An average person can walk into a noisy room and have a private conversation with relative ease—as if all the other voices in the room were muted. In fact, said Mesgarani, an engineer with a background in automatic speech recognition research, the engineering required to separate a single intelligible voice from a cacophony of speakers and background noise is a surprisingly difficult problem.

Speech recognition, he said, is "something that humans are remarkably good at, but it turns out that machine emulation of this human ability is extremely difficult."

More information: The article, "Selective cortical representation of attended speaker in multi-talker speech perception" by Nima Mesgarani and Edward F. Chang appears in the April 19, 2012 issue of the journal Nature. http://dx.doi.org/ … /nature11020

Provided by University of California, San Francisco

"New study sheds light on how selective hearing works in the brain." April 18th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-brain_1.html

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Killing in war linked with suicidal thoughts among Vietnam veterans, study finds

The experience of killing in war was strongly associated with thoughts of suicide, in a study of Vietnam-era veterans led by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center (SFVAMC) and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

The scientists found that veterans with more experiences involving killing were twice as likely to have reported suicidal thoughts as veterans who had fewer or no experiences.

To evaluate the experience of killing, the authors created four variables – killing enemy combatants, killing prisoners, killing civilians in general and killing or injuring women, children or the elderly. For each veteran, they combined those variables into a single composite measure. The higher the composite score, the greater the likelihood that a veteran had thought about suicide.

The relationship between killing and suicidal thoughts held even after the scientists adjusted for variables including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, substance use disorders and exposure to combat.

The study, which was published electronically on April 13 in the journal Depression and Anxiety, was based on an analysis of data from the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Survey, a comprehensive study of a nationally representative sample of Vietnam-era veterans.

The authors cited other research indicating that veterans are at elevated risk of suicide compared to people with no military service. They noted that by 2009, the suicide rate in the U.S. Army had risen to 21.8 per 100,000 soldiers, a rate exceeding that of the general population.

"The VA has a lot of very good mental health programs, including programs targeting suicide prevention. Our goal is to make those programs even stronger," said lead author Shira Maguen, a clinical psychologist at SFVAMC and an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at UCSF. "We want clinicians and suicide prevention coordinators to be aware that in analyzing a veteran's risk of suicide, killing in combat is an additional factor that they may or may not be aware of."

Notably, the scientists found that the only variable with a significant link to actual suicide attempts among the veterans was PTSD – a finding that replicated earlier studies, according to Maguen. Thus, she said, the link between killing and suicide attempts was not as significant as the link between killing and suicidal thoughts.

Maguen noted that, currently, the mental health impact of killing is not formally evaluated as part of VA or Department of Defense mental health treatments, nor typically taken into consideration when assessing a veteran's risk of suicide.

"We know from our previous research how hard it is to talk about killing," Maguen cautioned. "It's important that we as care providers have these conversations with veterans in a supportive, therapeutic environment so that they will feel comfortable talking about their experiences."

The overall goal, she said, "is to look back and understand some lessons of the past that we can apply to the present. Talking with people who have had suicidal thoughts can potentially give us insights into why suicides occur, and hopefully help us prevent them."

Provided by University of California, San Francisco

"Killing in war linked with suicidal thoughts among Vietnam veterans, study finds." April 18th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-war-linked-suicidal-thoughts-vietnam.html

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Opium use linked to almost double the risk of death from any cause

Long term opium use, even in relatively low doses, is associated with almost double the risk of death from many causes, particularly circulatory diseases, respiratory conditions and cancer, concludes a study published in the British Medical Journaltoday.

The findings remind us not only that opium is harmful, but raise questions about the risks of long term prescription opioids for treatment of chronic pain.

The research was carried out in northern Iran, where opium consumption is exceptionally common, and is the first study to measure the risks of death in opium users compared with non-users.

Around 20 million people worldwide use opium or its derivatives. Studies suggest a possible role of opium in throat cancer, bladder cancer, coronary heart disease and a few other conditions, but little is known about its effect on overall mortality, particularly for low-dose opium used over a long period

So an international research team set out to investigate the association between opium use and subsequent risk of death.

They studied opium use among 50,045 men and women aged 40 to 75 years living in Golestan Province in northern Iran for an average of five years.

A total of 17% (8,487) participants reported opium use, with an average duration of 12.7 years. 2,145 deaths were reported during the study period.

After adjusting for several factors including poverty and cigarette smoking, opium use was associated with an 86% increased risk of deaths from several major causes including circulatory diseases, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), tuberculosis and cancer.

Even after excluding those who self-prescribed opium after the onset of a chronic illness, the associations remained strong and a dose-response relationship was seen.

Increased mortality was seen for different types of opium. Both opium ingestion and opium smoking were associated with a higher risk of death.

Assuming this represents a direct (causal) association, the authors estimate that 15% of all deaths in this population are attributable to opium. They call for more studies on opium use and mortality and of patients taking long term opioid analgesics for treatment of pain to help shed further light on this issue.

"In a linked editorial, Assistant Professor Irfan Dhalla from St Michael's Hospital in Toronto says that in high income countries doctors rarely, if ever, encounter someone who uses opium. However he warns that millions of patients with chronic pain are prescribed opioids such as morphine and codeine that may carry "risks that are incompletely understood."

More information: http://www.bmj.com … 36/bmj.e2502

Provided by British Medical Journal

"Opium use linked to almost double the risk of death from any cause." April 17th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-opium-linked-death.html

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Curbing college binge drinking: What role do 'alcohol expectancies' play?

Researchers at The Miriam Hospital say interventions targeting what college students often see as the pleasurable effects of alcohol – including loosened inhibitions and feeling more bold and outgoing – may be one way to stem the tide of dangerous and widespread binge drinking on college campuses.

According to a new report, "alcohol expectancy challenges," or social experiments aimed at challenging students' beliefs about the rewards of drinking, can successfully reduce both the quantity of alcohol consumed and the frequency of heavy or binge drinking among college students.

The findings are published online by the Psychology of Addictive Behaviors.

"We know drinking habits can be influenced by what people expect will happen when they consume alcohol, so if you believe alcohol gives you 'liquid courage' or that drinking helps you 'fit in' or be more social, you're likely to drink more," said the study's lead author, Lori A.J. Scott-Sheldon, Ph.D., of The Miriam Hospital's Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine

"If we can prove to students that many of the perceived positive side effects of alcohol are actually due to their expectations, rather than the alcohol itself, then we could potentially reduce frequent binge drinking and its negative consequences," she added.

Drinking is pervasive on most college campuses in the United States. Data from several national surveys indicate that about four in five college students drink and that about half of college student drinkers engage in heavy episodic consumption. Excessive alcohol use is associated with a number of short- and long-term consequences, including academic problems, sexual assault, unsafe sex, injuries and violence, arrests, college attrition, alcohol abuse and dependence, and accidental death. As a result, reducing alcohol consumption by college students has been declared a public health priority by the Surgeon General.

Alcohol expectancy challenges have been designated by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism as one of only three effective alcohol-prevention treatments for college students. During a typical expectancy challenge intervention, alcohol is provided to a group in a bar-like setting; some drinks contain alcohol while others are non-alcoholic, but the participants do not know which type of beverage they have. Students then engage in activities that promote social interaction, such as party games, and after some time, they are asked to evaluate whether other participants were drinking alcohol versus a placebo. In the majority of cases, groups had difficulty determining who actually received alcohol and who did not.

The challenge also offers an opportunity to educate college drinkers about alcohol expectancies, myths about the effects of alcohol, the pharmacology of alcohol and drinking responsibly.

Scott-Sheldon and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis of 19 separate alcohol expectancy challenges among more than 1,400 college students across the country. Overall, participants reported lower positive alcohol expectancies and reduced both their alcohol use and their frequency of heavy drinking for as long as one month post-intervention.

In most cases, expectancy challenge interventions were delivered in three or fewer group sessions. Because it may not require as many resources as the more individualized strategies that are commonly used for college drinkers, Scott-Sheldon says colleges may find this approach a more attractive alternative.

"This relatively brief, group-based intervention is something that could be easily implemented within the context of campus group activities, such as the residence life program, student orientation or student organization events," she said.

Because the effects of alcohol expectancy challenges are brief, researchers say providers might consider implementing these interventions before periods when students are more likely to engage in at-risk drinking behavior, such as spring break or "rush week" for fraternities or sororities.

Provided by Lifespan

"Curbing college binge drinking: What role do 'alcohol expectancies' play?." April 18th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-curbing-college-binge-role-alcohol.html

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Robert Karl Stonjek

Good to read

People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.

When you know which one it is, you will know what to do for that
Person...

When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need
You have expressed.

They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with
Guidance and support,

To aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually.

They may seem like a godsend and they are.

They are there for the reason you need them to be.

Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time,

This person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an
End.

Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away.

Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand.

What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire
Fulfilled, their work is done.

The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on. 







Some people come into your life for a SEASON, because your turn has
Come to share, grow or learn.

They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh.

They may teach you something you have never done.

They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy..

Believe it, it is real.. But only for a season.





LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons,

Things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional
Foundation..

Your job is to accept the lesson,

Love the person and put what you have learned to use in all other
Relationships and areas of your life.

It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.





Thank you for being a part of my life,

Whether you were a reason, a season or a lifetime. 

Gene hunt is on for mental disability

Pioneering clinical genome-sequencing projects focus on patients with developmental delay.

Ewen Callaway

 

 

Exome sequencing could help to identify the causes of intellectual disability in children such as Siebe.

Han Brunner

Medical geneticists are giving genome sequencing its first big test in the clinic by applying it to some of their most baffling cases. By the end of this year, hundreds of children with unexplained forms of intellectual disability and developmental delay will have had their genomes decoded as part of the first large-scale, national clinical sequencing projects.

These programmes, which were discussed last month at a rare-diseases conference hosted by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge, UK, aim to provide a genetic diagnosis that could end years of uncertainty about a child’s disability. In the longer term, they could provide crucial data that will underpin efforts to develop therapies. The projects are also highlighting the logistical and ethical challenges of bringing genome sequencing to the consulting room. “The overarching theme is that genome-based diagnosis is now hitting mainstream medicine,” says Han Brunner, a medical geneticist at the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre in the Netherlands, who leads one of the projects.

About 2% of children experience some form of intellectual disability. Many have disorders such as Down’s syndrome and fragile X syndrome, which are linked to known genetic abnormalities and so are easily diagnosed. Others have experienced environmental risk factors, such as fetal alcohol exposure, that rule out a simple genetic explanation. However, a large proportion of intellectual disability cases are thought to be the work of single, as-yet-unidentified mutations.

Scientists estimate that about 1,000 genes are involved in the function of the healthy brain. “There are so many genes that can go wrong and give you intellectual disability,” says André Reis, a medical geneticist at Erlangen University Hospital in Germany. Reis’s group, the German Mental Retardation Network, has already sequenced the exomes — the 1–2% of the genome that contains instructions for building proteins — of about 50 patients with severe intellectual disability.

Joining the hunt is a UK-based programme called Deciphering Developmental Disorders, which expects to sequence 1,000 exomes by the year’s end, with an ultimate goal of diagnosing up to 12,000 British children with developmental delay. A Canadian project called FORGE (finding of rare disease genes) aims to sequence children and families with 200 different disorders this year. And in the United States, the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, recently funded three Mendelian Disorders Sequencing Centers that will apply genome sequencing to diagnosing thousands of patients with a wider range of rare diseases, including intellectual disability and developmental delay.

First glance

Early results are coming in from Brunner’s team, which has already sequenced about 100 exomes of children with intellectual disability. By comparing the children’s exomes with those of the parents, the researchers have identified new mutations — potential causes of the disorder — in as many as 40% of the cases. The other programmes are having similar success at making possible genetic diagnoses.

In most cases, identifying mutations will not point to medical treatments, let alone cures. But scientists say the importance of a diagnosis should not be discounted. “Parents have been struggling with the delay of their children for years. They have gone from one doctor to the next, had all kinds of tests done on their children looking for an explanation,” Reis says. Knowing that the mutation causing a child’s intellectual disability is new rather than inherited can also reassure parents that other children they conceive are unlikely to have the same disease.

Treatments could eventually follow. The projects are guiding research in mice, zebrafish and fruitflies, with the goal of unpicking the mechanisms of mental disorders. But it will undoubtedly be a long time before any potential therapies are tried in humans: an early-stage clinical trial of a drug to treat fragile X syndrome, for example, was published last year (S. Jacquemont et al. Sci. Transl. Med. 3, 64ra1; 2011), some two decades after the gene underlying the condition, FMR1, was identified.

The work is also throwing up a fresh challenge: how can scientists be sure that a specific mutation is the cause of a particular form of mental disability? “It’s not clear what is the threshold of evidence at which you can say this is the causal variant in this patient,” says Daniel MacArthur, a geneticist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. In a recent Science paper, his team estimated that the average healthy genome contains about 100 gene-disabling mutations. Such ‘background noise’ could lead scientists astray in their hunt for causal mutations.

Brunner says that about half of the mutations his team has identified have previously been seen in other patients with similar forms of intellectual disability, offering enough assurance to make a diagnosis. Circumstantial evidence, such as indications that the mutation disrupts a gene expressed in the brains of animals, ties the other half of the mutations to intellectual disability. But making a solid case often requires identifying second, third and fourth patients with similar mutations and symptoms.

Scientists are already forging these connections on an informal basis. At the Sanger Institute meeting, several groups reported mutations in a gene called ARID1B in patients with intellectual disability. James Lupski, a medical geneticist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, says that when his team identifies a potentially disease-causing mutation in a patient genome, he e-mails other scientists to see whether they have found similar mutations.

But researchers agree that they need a more formalized way to make these connections. To that end, the US National Center for Biotechnology Information in Bethesda is developing a database, ClinVar, to integrate clinical and genetic data; others, such as DECIPHER, run by the Sanger Institute, handle genetic data such as chromosome rearrangements that can disrupt genes.

The first clinical sequencing projects are also grappling with what they should or shouldn’t tell patients. “We don’t want people coming into our clinic for intellectual disability and coming out with a cancer gene; this is not what they came for,” says Reis.

Brunner’s team once had to face just that situation. The researchers identified a mutation in a gene in one patient that could increase the risk of colon cancer as an adult. The project’s ethical review board had determined that if families wanted to know of mutations potentially underlying a child’s intellectual disability, they must also be willing to receive such incidental findings, and so the child’s parents were told. But clinical sequencing projects vary in their approach to incidental results. For the time being, Deciphering Developmental Disorders will not inform families about such findings. For FORGE Canada, the policy varies from province to province.

A working group convened by the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics in Bethesda recently suggested drawing up a list of gene mutations that ought to be routinely reported back to patients. The list would include mutations strongly linked to conditions for which a medical intervention is available.

“This is a fast-changing ethical environment,” says Matt Hurles, a geneticist at the Sanger Institute and one of the leaders of Deciphering Developmental Disorders. His team is conducting a web-based survey to gauge the attitudes of parents, physicians and the general public towards disclosing incidental genomic findings. Lupski admits, “We’re learning as we go along. People don’t want to hear that, but that’s the truth of the matter.”

Scientists and clinicians hope that the lessons learned in these initial large-scale clinical sequencing projects will inform genomic medicine as it reaches more patients and moves to other specialities, such as neurology and cardiology, and even to routine health care. “If in five years time this project hasn’t catalysed the adoption of genomic technologies which have been shown to be useful, in some degree we will have failed,” says Hurles.

Nature 484, 302–303

( 19 April 2012 )

doi :10.1038/484302a

 

Source: Nature
http://www.nature.com/news/gene-hunt-is-on-for-mental-disability-1.10463

 

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Robert Karl Stonjek

FRUITS AND HUMAN BODY

CARROTS  EYES

SLICE a carrot and it looks just like an eye, right down to the pattern of the iris. Its a clear clue to the importance this everyday veg has for vision. Carrots get their orange colour from a plant chemical called beta carotene, which reduces the risk of developing cataracts. The chemical also protects against macular degeneration an age-related sight problem that affects one in four over-65s. It is the most common cause of blindness in Britain. But popping a beta carotene pill doesn't have the same effect, say scientists at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore

WALNUT  BRAIN 
THE gnarled folds of a walnut mimic the appearance of a human brain - and provide a clue to the benefits. Walnuts are the only nuts which contain significant amounts of omega-3 fatty acids. They may also help head off dementia. An American study found that walnut extract broke down the protein-based plaques associated with Alzheimers disease. Researchers at Tufts University in Boston found walnuts reversed some signs of brain aging in rats. Dr James Joseph, who headed the study, said walnuts also appear to enhance signalling within the brain and encourage new messaging links between brain cells.

TOMATO  HEART

A TOMATO is red and usually has four chambers, just like our heart. Tomatoes are also a great source of lycopene, a plant chemical that reduces the risk of heart disease and several cancers. The Women's Health Study � an American research programme which tracks the health of 40,000 women � found women with the highest blood levels of lycopene had 30 per cent less heart disease than women who had very little lycopene. Lab experiments have also shown that lycopene helps counter the effect of unhealthy LDL cholesterol. One Canadian study, published in the journal Experimental Biology and Medicine, said there was œconvincing evidence that lycopene prevented coronary heart disease.

GRAPES  LUNGS

OUR lungs are made up of branches of ever-smaller airways that finish up with tiny bunches of tissue called alveoli. These structures, which resemble bunches of grapes, allow oxygen to pass from the lungs to the blood stream. One reason that very premature babies struggle to survive is that these alveoli do not begin to form until week 23 or 24 of pregnancy. A diet high in fresh fruit, such as grapes, has been shown to reduce the risk of lung cancer and emphysema. Grape seeds also contain a chemical called proanthocyanidin, which appears to reduce the severity of asthma triggered by allergy. 

CHEESE  BONES 
A nice ˜holey cheese, like Emmenthal, is not just good for your bones, it even resembles their internal structure. And like most cheeses, it is a rich source of calcium, a vital ingredient for strong bones and reducing the risk of osteoporosis later in life. Together with another mineral called phosphate, it provides the main strength in bones but also helps to ˜power muscles. Getting enough calcium in the diet during childhood is crucial for strong bones. A study at Columbia University in New York showed teens who increased calcium intake from 800mg a day to 1200mg  equal to an extra two slices of cheddar - boosted their bone density by six per cent.

GINGER  STOMACH 
Root ginger, commonly sold in supermarkets, often looks just like the stomach. So its interesting that one of its biggest benefits is aiding digestion. The Chinese have been using it for over 2,000 years to calm the stomach and cure nausea, while it is also a popular remedy for motion sickness. But the benefits could go much further.
Tests on mice at the University of Minnesota found injecting the chemical that gives ginger its flavour slowed down the growth rate of bowel tumours

BANANA (SMILE)  DEPRESSION 
Cheer yourself up and put a smile on your face by eating a banana. The popular fruit contains a protein called tryptophan. Once it has been digested, tryptophan then gets converted in a chemical neurotransmitter called serotonin. This is one of the most important mood-regulating chemicals in the brain and most anti-depressant drugs work by adjusting levels of serotonin production. Higher levels are associated with better moods.

MUSHROOM  EAR
Slice a mushroom in half and it resembles the shape of the human ear. And guess what? Adding it to your cooking could actually improve your hearing. Thats because mushrooms are one of the few foods in our diet that contain vitamin D. This particular vitamin is important for healthy bones, even the tiny ones in the ear that transmit sound to the brain.

BROCCOLI  CANCER 
Close-up, the tiny green tips on a broccoli head look like hundreds of cancer cells. Now scientists know this disease-busting veg can play a crucial role in preventing the disease. Last year, a team of researchers at the US National Cancer Institute found just a weekly serving of broccoli was enough to reduce the risk of prostate cancer by 45 per cent. In Britain, prostate cancer kills one man every hour.

Bula Le Baba Shirdi Dham [Full Song] I Sai Kardo Karam

இதய நோய்களை தடுக்க மாடிப்படியை உபயோகப்படுத்துங்கள்: நிபுணர்கள் அறிவுரை

அடுக்குமாடி குடியிருப்புகளிலோ, பணிபுரியும் அலுவலகங்களிலோ இப்பொழுதெல்லாம் யாருமே மாடிப்படியை உபயோகிப்பதில்லை. இதற்கு காரணம் அனைத்து இடங்களிலும் லிப்ட் வசதி உள்ளதால் ஒரு மாடி ஏறவே சோம்பேறித்தனப் பட்டுக்கொண்டு லிப்ட் உபயோகிக்கின்றனர் பலரும். இதனால் உடல் பருமன் உள்ளிட்ட நோய்கள் ஏற்படுகின்றன. மாடி ஏற படிகளை உபயோகித்தால் உடல்பருமன், இதயநோய் உள்ளிட்டவை ஏற்பட வாய்ப்பில்லை என்கின்றனர் நிபுணர்கள். ஜிம்மிற்கு சென்று பணம் செலவழித்து உடற்பயிற்சி செய்வதைக்காட்டிலும் மாடிப்படி ஏறுவது சிறந்த உடற்பயிற்சி என்கின்றனர் நிபுணர்கள். மாடிப்படி ஏறும்போது உடலின் அனைத்து பகுதிகளும் இயங்குகின்றன. இதன் காரணமாக உடலில் உள்ள அதிகப்படியான கொழுப்புகள் கரைந்து காணாமல் போகின்றன. கல்வி நிலையங்கள், அலுவலகங்கள், ஷாப்பிங் மால் போன்ற இடங்களில் எக்ஸலேட்டர், லிப்ட் போன்றவைகளை உபயோகப்படுத்துவதை விட மாடிப்படிகளை பயன்படுத்தலாம் என்கின்றனர் நிபுணர்கள். மாடிப்படி ஏறுவதனால் இதயநோய்கள் ஏற்படாது என்கின்றனர் மருத்துவர்கள். இதய தசைகள் பலமடைகின்றன. இதனால் உடலுக்குத் தேவையான ஆக்ஸிஜன் அனைத்து பகுதிகளுக்கும் எடுத்துச் செல்லப்படுகிறது. வாரத்திற்கு மூன்று முறை அதாவது 30 நிமிடங்கள் மாடிப்படி ஏறி இறங்கினாலே போதும். இதயநோய்கள் எதுவும் ஏற்படவாய்ப்பில்லை. உயர் ரத்தஅழுத்தம் ஏற்படுவதும் தடுக்கப்படுகின்றது. மாடிப்படி ஏறி இறங்கினால் எக்கச்சக்க கலோரிகள் எரிக்கப்படுகின்றன. உடல் பருமன் ஏற்படுவதில்லை. மாறாக குண்டு உடல்காரர்கள் மாடிப்படி ஏறி, இறங்கினால் உடல் சிக் என்று ஆகிவிடும். வேலைப்பளுவினால் ஜிம், உடற்பயிற்சி என தனியாக நேரத்தை செலவழிக்க இயலாதவர்கள் மாடிப்படி ஏறி இறங்குவதன் மூலம் சிறந்த உடற்பயிற்சி கிடைக்கிறது. இதனால் உடல் பிட்டாவதோடு, கான்சன்ட்ரேசன் பவர் அதிகரிக்கிறது. இது பிற உடற்பயிற்சிகளை விட ஆபத்தில்லாத உடற்பயிற்சியாகவும் செயல்படுகிறது. அதேசமயம் மூட்டுவலி உடையவர்கள், பின்னங்கழுத்து வலி உள்ளவர்கள் மாடிப்படி ஏறுவதை தவிர்க்கலாம் என்கின்றனர் நிபுணர்கள்.

வெள்ளரிக்காயின் மருத்துவ குணங்கள்

வெள்ளரியில் மிகுந்துள்ள நீர்ச்சத்து, கடும் நாவறட்சியை விரட்டுவதோடு, பசியையும் உண்டாக்கும், உடலைக் குளிரவைக்கும். வெள்ளரியில் வைட்டமின்கள் ஏதுமில்லை. ஆனால் தாதுப்பொருட்களான சோடியம், கால்சியம், மக்னேசியம், இரும்பு, பாஸ்பரஸ், கந்தகம், சிலிகன், குளோரின் போன்றவை உண்டு. இவற்றைவிட நம் இரத்தத்தில் சிவப்பணுக்களை உருவாக்கும் பொட்டாசியம் வெள்ளரியில் மிகுதி. ஈரல், கல்லீரல் இவற்றில் சூட்டைத் தணிக்கும் ஆற்றல் வெள்ளரிக்கு இருப்பதால் அப்பாகங்களில் ஏற்படும் நோய் தணியும். செரிமானம் தீவிரமாகும், பசி அதிகரிக்கும். வெள்ளரிக்காயை உண்ணுகையில் பசிரசம் என்னும் விசேஷ ஜீரண நீர் சுரக்கிறது என்பதும் விஞ்ஞானிகளின் கண்டுபிடிப்பு. புகைப் பிடிப்போரின் குடலை நிகோடின் நஞ்சு சீரழிக்கிறது. நஞ்சை நீக்கும் அற்புக ஆற்றல் வெள்ளரிக்காய்க்கு உண்டு. மூளைக்கு மிகச்சிறந்த வலிமை தரக்கூடியது வெள்ளரி. மூளை வேலை அதிகம் செய்து கபாலம் சூடு அடைந்தவர்களுக்குக் குளிர்ச்சியும், மூளைக்குப் புத்துணர்ச்சியும் வெள்ளரிக்காய் வழங்கும். நுரையீரல் கோளாறுகள், கபம், இருமல் உள்ளவர்கள் வெள்ளரிக்காயைச் சாப்பிடுவது நல்லதல்ல.