Crisis Situations Lead to Consumption of High-Calorie Foods

Researchers at University of Miami have revealed that people consume more calories during periods of depression or crisis, such as the current economic recession, as they tend to select high calorie food items that can satisfy them for longer periods.
The researchers conducted a number of experimental scenarios with the participants, including recession-like scenarios, and found that people consumed 70 percent more of high calorie food items and 25 percent less of food items that they thought had low calories. 
“The findings of this study come at a time when our country is slowly recovering from the onslaught of negative presidential campaign ads chalked with topics such as the weak economy, gun violence, war, deep political divides, just to name a few problem areas.”, lead researcher Professor Juliano Laran said. 
The study has been published in the journal Psychological Science. 

One Year Olds Learn Languages Faster Than Adults: Study

Brain scans of infants show that the anatomy of certain brain areas can predict the language ability of children when they are a year old, says study.The cerebellum is typically linked to motor learning (picking up new skills) while the hippocampus is commonly recognised as a memory processor. 
"The brain of the baby holds an infinite number of secrets just waiting to be uncovered. These discoveries will show us why infants learn languages like sponges, far surpassing our skills as adults," said co-author Patricia Kuhl, co-director of the University of Washington Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences. 
"The brain uses many general skills to learn language. Knowing which brain regions are linked to this early learning could help identify children with developmental disabilities and provide them with early interventions that will steer them back toward a typical developmental path," Kuhl said, the journal Brain and Language reports. 
Children's language skills soar after they reach their first birthdays, but little is known about how infants' early brain development seeds that path. Identifying which brain areas are related to early language learning could provide a first glimpse of development going awry, allowing for treatments to begin earlier. 
"Infancy may be the most important phase of post-natal brain development in humans," said Dilara Deniz Can, postdoctoral researcher, who co-authored the study with Todd Richards, professor of radiology. 
"Our results showing brain structures linked to later language ability in typically developing infants is a first step toward examining links to brain and behaviour in young children with linguistic, psychological and social delays," added Can. 
Researchers used magnetic resonance imaging to measure the brain structure of a group of boys and girls at seven months. Five months later, when the children were about a year old, they returned to the lab for a language test. 
Infants with a greater concentration of grey and white matter in the cerebellum and the hippocampus showed greater language ability when they were a year old. This is the first study to identify a relationship between language and the cerebellum and hippocampus in infants. Neither brain area is well-known for its role in language.
Source-IANS
 

 

Alternative medicine use high among children with chronic conditions: UAlberta medical research

Children who regularly see specialists for chronic medical conditions are also using complementary medicine at a high rate, demonstrates recently published research from the University of Alberta and the University of Ottawa.
About 71 per cent of pediatric patients attending various specialty clinics at the Stollery Children's Hospital in Edmonton used alternative medicine, while the rate of use at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa was 42 per cent. Nearly 20 per cent of the families who took part in the study said they never told their physician or pharmacist about concurrently using prescription and alternative medicine.
Sunita Vohra, a researcher with the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the U of A, was the lead investigator on the study, which was recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Pediatrics. Her co-investigator was W James King from the University of Ottawa.
"The children in this study are often given prescription medicines," says Vohra, a pediatrician who works in the Department of Pediatrics and the School of Public Health at the U of A.
"And many of these children used complementary therapies at the same time or instead of taking prescription medicine. We asked families if they would like to talk about the use of alternative medicine, more than 80 per cent of them said, 'yes, please.'
"Right now, these families are getting information about alternative medicine from friends, family and the Internet, but a key place they should be getting this information from is their doctor or another member of their health-care team, who would know about possible drug interactions with prescription medicines." Vohra said the study "identified a gap in communications" in dealing with pediatric patients and their families.
"It's important to get these conversations going with every patient, especially when you consider it's not widely recognized how common it is for children with chronic illnesses to use alternative medicine," says the Alberta Innovates-Health Solutions scholar.
"We need to make sure these families are comfortable telling their specialists they are taking other therapies," she said. Right now, Vohra and her colleagues at the U of A have developed curricula for undergraduate medical students about the use of alternative medicine by pediatric patients, which is considered innovative and novel. Ensuring medical students receive information about alternative medicine is key because it arms them with more knowledge about potential interactions with prescription medicine, says Vohra.
"Considering parents are saying they want this information, we have an obligation to ensure future physicians have the education and resources they need for these conversations," Vohra says.
Source:University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry

Can Acupuncture Improve Exercise Performance and Post-Exercise Recovery?

 

The effects of acute acupuncture applied during exercise on performance factors such as power and blood pressure and on the body's ability to recover post-exercise were evaluated in a review article published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal website.

A review of the literature uncovered four studies designed to test whether a person receiving acupuncture while exercising would have enhanced exercise performance and/or recover more quickly from an exercise session. In theirsystematic review article, Paola Urroz, Ben Colagiuri, Caroline Smith, andBirinder Singh Cheema, University of Western Sydney (Campbelltown), and University of Sydney, Australia, suggest that based on these four published studies, acupuncture may have a positive effect. They caution, however, that additional trials, with larger numbers of participants and randomized, controlled study designs, as well as standardized reporting of research methods and results, are needed to confirm and more thoroughly explore the effects of acupuncture on exercise performance and recovery.

About the Journal

The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine is a monthly peer-reviewed journal publishing observational, clinical, and scientific reports and commentary intended to help healthcare professionals and scientists evaluate and integrate therapies into patient care protocols and research strategies. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine website.

About the Publisher
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Alternative and Complementary Therapies, Medical Acupuncture, and Journal of Medicinal Food. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry’s most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm’s 70 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.

It's True: Medical Cannabis Provides Dramatic Relief for Sufferers of Chronic Ailments

Treatment can improve appetite, ease chronic pain, and more, say TAU researchers

Moshe Roth, a Hadarim resident and participant in the TAU cannabis study.

Though controversial, medical cannabis has been gaining ground as a valid therapy, offering relief to suffers of diseases such as cancer, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, ALS and more. The substance is known to soothe severe pain, increase the appetite, and ease insomnia where other common medications fail.In 2009, Zach Klein, a graduate of Tel Aviv University's Department of Film and Television Studies, directed the documentary Prescribed Grass. Through the process, he developed an interest in the scientific research behind medical marijuana, and now, as a specialist in policy-making surrounding medical cannabis and an MA student at TAU's Porter School of Environmental Studies, he is conducting his own research into the benefits of medical cannabis.

Using marijuana from a farm called Tikkun Olam — a reference to the Jewish concept of healing the world — Klein and his fellow researchers tested the impact of the treatment on 19 residents of the Hadarim nursing home in Israel. The results, Klein says, have been outstanding. Not only did participants experience dramatic physical results, including healthy weight gain and the reduction of pain and tremors, but Hadarim staff saw an immediate improvement in the participants' moods and communication skills. The use of chronic medications was also significantly reduced, he reports.Klein's research team includes Dr. Dror Avisar of TAU's Hydrochemistry Laboratory at the Department of Geography and Human Environment; Prof. Naama Friedmannand Rakefet Keider of TAU's Jaime and Joan Constantiner School of Education; Dr. Yehuda Baruch of TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine and director of the Abarbanel Mental Health Center; and Dr. Moshe Geitzen and Inbal Sikorin of Hadarim.

Cutting down on chronic medications

Israel is a world leader in medical cannabis research, Klein says. The active ingredient in marijuana, THC, was first discovered there by Profs. Raphael Mechoulam and Yechiel Gaoni. Prof. Mechoulam is also credited for having defined the endocannabinoid system, which mimics the effects of cannabis and plays a role in appetite, pain sensation, mood and memory.In the Hadarim nursing home, 19 patients between the ages of 69 and 101 were treated with medical cannabis in the form of powder, oil, vapor, or smoke three times daily over the course of a year for conditions such as pain, lack of appetite, and muscle spasms and tremors. Researchers and nursing home staff monitored participants for signs of improvement, as well as improvement in overall life quality, such as mood and ease in completing daily living activities.During the study, 17 patients achieved a healthy weight, gaining or losing pounds as needed. Muscle spasms, stiffness, tremors and pain reduced significantly. Almost all patients reported an increase in sleeping hours and a decrease in nightmares and PTSD-related flashbacks.There was a notable decline in the amount of prescribed medications taken by patients, such as antipsychotics, Parkinson's treatment, mood stabilizers, and pain relievers, Klein found, noting that these drugs have severe side effects. By the end of the study, 72 percent of participants were able to reduce their drug intake by an average of 1.7 medications a day.

Connecting cannabis and swallowing

This year, Klein is beginning a new study at Israel's Reuth Medical Center with Drs. Jean-Jacques Vatine and Aviah Gvion, in which he hopes to establish a connection between medical cannabis and improved swallowing. One of the biggest concerns with chronically ill patients is food intake, says Klein. Dysphagia, or difficulty in swallowing, can lead to a decline in nutrition and even death. He believes that cannabis, which has been found to stimulate regions of the brain associated with swallowing reflexes, will have a positive impact.Overall, Klein believes that the healing powers of cannabis are close to miraculous, and has long supported an overhaul in governmental policy surrounding the drug. Since his film was released in 2009, the number of permits for medical cannabis in Israel has increased from 400 to 11,000. His research is about improving the quality of life, he concludes, especially for those who have no other hope.

Source: TAU

Researchers say it’s time to treat anemia seriously

Up to one-third of patients undergoing surgery in Ontario have a treatable form of anemia but are not optimally treated for it.

A paper published online today in the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia says that hospitals that do treat patients with anemia have better outcomes, including fewer blood transfusions and infections and shorter hospital stays.

A common option for management of anemia has been blood transfusion. But blood transfusions are expensive and are associated with higher death and complication rates.

Dr. Gregory Hare, an anesthesiologist at St. Michael’s Hospital, reported in today’s paper that hip and knee replacement patients who had blood transfusions stayed in hospital about two days longer than those who did not have transfusions. The stay was about three days longer for coronary artery bypass graft patients who had transfusions. The risk of infection more than doubled for patients who had transfusions.

Dr. Hare called anemia a “silent killer.” Severe anemia can cause low oxygen levels in vital organs and may result in heart attacks, strokes and kidney failure. He said early diagnosis of anemia is important to give doctors sufficient time to treat it before surgery.

For example, 10.4 per cent of knee replacement patients diagnosed with anemia less than seven days before surgery required transfusions, compared to 7.3 per cent diagnosed more than 21 days in advance. He said 41.3 per cent of coronary artery bypass grafts patients needed blood transfusions if diagnosed with anemia less than seven days before surgery, compared with 22.8 per cent diagnosed more than 21 days in advance. “If given time to treat anemia, we can avoid unnecessary transfusions and thereby improve quality of patient care,” Dr. Hare said.

St. Michael’s is developing a Centre of Excellence for Patient Blood Management, which would be one of the first of its kind in Canada and a global leader in patient care and in training, research and education for health care professionals.

Under patient blood management, physicians might prescribe certain drugs or dietary supplements to raise a patient’s hemoglobin level before surgery.

During surgery, doctors may use a variety of state of-the-art technologies and techniques to minimize blood loss, such as minimally invasive surgery, electrocautery (using heat to stop vessels from bleeding), an argon beam coagulator, which coagulates or clots blood to minimize blood loss, or intravenous iron and erythropoietin, which stimulate bone marrow to produce red blood cells.

The number of patients requiring blood transfusions after undergoing knee replacement surgery in Ontario in 2011 was less than half the number in 2002.

2002 was when the provincial government set up the Ontario Transfusion Coordinators (ONTraC), a province-wide blood management program administered by St. Michael’s Hospital. The goal of the program is to promote blood conservation and alternatives to transfusions for problems such as anemia, a condition where a person has a reduced number of red blood cells or hemoglobin, the part of the red blood cell that carries oxygen.

ONTraC figures published for the first time today show the number of patients requiring blood transfusions after undergoing knee surgery fell from 24.5 per cent in 2002 to 10.1 per cent in 2011. The number requiring transfusions after undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting fell from 60.2 per cent to 25.2 per cent in the same time.

The research was funded by the Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society, St. Michael’s Departments of Anesthesia, Laboratory Medcine and Medicine. Dr. Hare has been supported by a Merit Award from the Department of Anesthesia, University of Toronto, with salary support from Johnson and Johnson Medical Companies.

Source:St. Michael’s Hospital,

 

Body Language is an Important Indicator of Your Emotions

A recent research has shown that it is not the facial expression alone but also the body language, that help us detect and understand the emotions of people. The eyes are no longer the only window to the soul.The researchers believe that as against the popular belief, a mere glance on the face of a person is not sufficient enough to tell us whether he/she is in a state of elation or depression. 
Some people profess to be able to read other’s face but it is the body language that actually tells us whether a person is feeling positive or negative. 
In a study published in the Science journal, participants were shown pictures of tennis players just after winning or losing a point. 
The volunteers of the study were asked to read their expression and then give their opinion about how and what the players felt. 
In some cases full body of the players were shown while in others either their body or face was shown to the study participants. 
The volunteers who saw the entire images could clearly tell whether a player was winning or losing, but were convinced of having made their evaluations from the facial expressions of the players. 
The scientists from Princeton and New York Universities and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem conducted another study where the participants were shown a variety of faces portraying strong emotions such as pleasure, victory, joy, defeat and grief. 
Using trick photography the experts attached the faces to the bodies showing contrasting emotions and asked the participants to enact the sentiments they noticed in the photos. 
The scientist observed that people were able to mimic the body poses and not the facial expressions. This threw light on the fact that people interpret largely from the cues in the body and not from the facial expressions. 
Dr. Hillel Aviezer, the lead author said, “These results show that when emotions become extremely intense, the difference between positive and negative facial expression blurs.” 
He further added, "The results may help researchers understand how body/face expressions interact during emotional situations. For example, individuals with autism may fail to recognize facial expressions, but perhaps if trained to process important body cues, their performance may significantly improve." 
The findings suggested that when someone’s emotional state is to be assessed, we do not rely merely on facial expressions.  

Reference: 
Your Body Says More About Your Emotions Than Your Face Does, Business Insider 
 
 

Don't Stick With a Job That You Hate

Researchers say that employees who stay at jobs out of a feeling of obligation are prone to several health problems, including exhaustion, stress and burnout."Our study examined whether some forms of commitment to an organization could have detrimental effects, such as emotional exhaustion and, eventually, turnover," study co-author Alexandra Panaccio from Concordia University in Montreal said. 
"It may be that, in the absence of an emotional bond with the organization, commitment based on obligation is experienced as a kind of indebtedness - a loss of autonomy that is emotionally draining over time," Panaccio said. 
The research found that employees who stayed at organizations out of either a feeling of obligation or a perceived lack of other job options were more likely than other employees to experience mental and physical health problems. Researchers based their findings on a study of 260 workers from a variety of industries. 
The research also found that people with higher self-esteem were more greatly affected by a lack of employment options. 
"When employees stay with their organization because they feel that they have no other options, they are more likely to experience emotional exhaustion," Panaccio said. 
"This feeling, in turn, may lead them to leave the organization," she said. 
Employers, however, can fight these problems by working with their employees. 
"The implication is that employers should try to minimize this 'lack of alternatives' type of commitment among employees by developing their competencies, thus increasing their feeling of mobility and, paradoxically, contributing to them wanting to stay with the organization," Panaccio added. 
The study has been published in the journal Human Relations.
Source-ANI

 

 

Genes Promote Rheumatoid Arthritis

Researchers at Johns Hopkins and the Karolinska Institutet say their study bridges the gap between whole-genome genetic sequencing and diseases that have no single or direct genetic cause.
 In one of the first genome-wide studies to hunt for both genes and their regulatory "tags" in patients suffering from a common disease, researchers have found a clear role for the tags in mediating genetic risk for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), an immune disorder that afflicts an estimated 1.5 million American adults. By teasing apart the tagging events that result from RA from those that help cause it, the scientists say they were able to spot tagged DNA sequences that may be important for the development of RA. And they suspect their experimental method can be applied to predict similar risk factors for other common, noninfectious diseases, like type II diabetes and heart ailments. 
The research was published in Nature Biotechnology Jan. 20. Most genetic changes associated with disease do not occur in protein-coding regions of DNA, but in their regulatory regions, explains Andrew Feinberg, M.D., M.P.H., a Gilman scholar, professor of molecular medicine and director of the Center for Epigenetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences. "Our study analyzed both and shows how genetics and epigenetics can work together to cause disease," he says. 
Rheumatoid arthritis is a debilitating disease that causes inflammation, stiffness, pain and disfigurement in joints, especially the small joints of the hands and feet. It is thought to be an autoimmune disease, meaning that the body's immune system attacks its own tissues, an assault led primarily by white blood cells. According to Feinberg, several DNA mutations are known to confer risk for RA, but there seem to be additional factors that suppress or enhance that risk. One probable factor involves chemical "tags" that attach to DNA sequences, part of a so-called epigenetic system that helps regulate when and how DNA sequences are "read," how they're used to create proteins and how they affect the onset or progress of disease. 
To complicate matters, Feinberg notes, the attachment of the tags to particular DNA sequences can itself be regulated by genes. "The details of what causes a particular sequence to be tagged are unclear, but it seems that some tagging events depend on certain DNA sequences. In other words, those tagging events are under genetic control," he says. Other tagging events, however, seem to depend on cellular processes and environmental changes, some of which could be the result, rather than the cause, of disease. 
To tease apart these two types of tagging events, the researchers catalogued DNA sequences and their tagging patterns in the white blood cells of more than 300 people with and without one form of RA. 
The team then began filtering out the tags that did not appear to affect RA risk. For example, if tags were seen on the same DNA sequence in those with and without RA, it was assumed that the tags at those sites were irrelevant to the cause or development of the disease. Then, from among the RA-relevant tags, they narrowed in on tags whose placement seemed to be dependent on DNA sequence. Finally, they made sure that the DNA sequences identified were themselves more prevalent in patients with RA. In this way, they created a list of DNA sequences associated with altered DNA tagging patterns, both of which were associated with RA. 
Ultimately, the team identified 10 DNA sites that were tagged differently in RA patients and whose tagging seemed to affect risk for RA. Nine of the 10 sites were within a region of the genome known to play an important role in autoimmune diseases, while the 10th was on a gene that had never before been associated with the disease. "Since RA is a disease in which the body's immune system turns on itself, current treatments often involve suppressing the entire immune system, which can have serious side effects," Feinberg says. "The results of this study may allow clinicians to instead directly target the culpable genes and/or their tags." 
"Our method allows us to predict which tagging sites are most important in the development of a disease. In this study, we looked for tagging sites under genetic control, but similar tags can be triggered by environmental exposures, like smoking, so there are many applications for this type of work," says Yun Liu, Ph.D., a lead researcher on the project. 
The study also may shed light on how evolution works, explains Feinberg. "It seems that natural selection might not simply be selecting for an individual's current fitness level but also for the adaptability of future generations given an unknown future. We think that certain genetic sequences may be biologically beneficial and conserved over time because they increase the amount of variation found in tagging patterns, giving individuals a greater chance of adapting to environmental changes." 
Source:Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
 

Energy Drink Consumption Now A Serious Public Health Concern

The number of people receiving emergency treatment because they consumed energy drinks has spiked in the U.S. over the past few years. With its ever increasing popularity, and availability, the energy drink industry has seen huge growth as more and more people of all demographics are consuming their products. A recent government survey indicates that from 2007 to 2011, the number of emergency department (ED) visits related to energy drink consumption nearly doubled, increasing from 10,068 to 20,783. 
The drinks contain high amounts of additives, such as caffeine, taurine, vitaminsand sugars. In fact, they have a significantly higher amount of caffeine than a regular cup of coffee, considerably stimulating the central nervous system and cardiovascular system. Many people aren't aware of the sheer number of additives inside these drinks, with doctors reporting that they have had patients come in who had drunk as many as three or four energy drinks within an hour - equivalent to almost fifteen cups of coffee.

Health complications associated with energy drink consumption

Excessive energy drink consumption can have some severe medical and behavioral consequences; it's proving to become a serious public health concern. It commonly causes health complications, such as insomnia, migraine, seizures and heart problems.Many doctors have said they are seeing an increasing number of patients coming into hospital after consuming an energy drink experiencing rapid and irregular heartbeats and in some cases even heart attacks. 
Of all the ED cases related to energy drinks, 58% involved patients who had consumed just energy drinks, while the other 42 percent involving a drug combination as well. The report showed that 27 percent of the drugs combined with energy drinks were pills, of which stimulants such as Adderall and Ritalin accounted for 9%, illegal and recreational drugs such as marijuana accounted for close to 10%.The report noted: 

"The majority of energy drink-related ED visits involved either adverse reactions or misuse or abuse of drugs; other reasons are not presented because they represent less than 5 percent of visits. In each year from 2007 to 2011, visits involving adverse reactions were about twice as commonly reported as visits involving misuse or abuse."

Men accounted for two thirds of the energy drink related ED visits. Perhaps this is because men are much more likely to buy energy drinks than women, the authors wrote. However, visits for both men and women doubled over the past four years (7,000 to 15,000 and 3,000 and 6,000), indicating a similar trend in both sexes. 
Source:MNT

New Herbal Remedy to Fight Malaria

Malaria now has a proven herbal remedy, says a new research!In a recent study, scientists have demonstrated that the powdered dried leaves of the plant, Artemisia annua (sweet wormwood), has the ability to deliver artemisinin 40 times more effectively than purified artemisinin, and is highly capable of reducing malarial parasite infection in mice. 
The drug artemisinin is produced from the herb Artemisia annua extract. Artemisinin in combination with other anti-malarial drugs (Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy), is currently the best treatment option against chloroquine-resistant malarial parasites. 
The reason for the greater effectiveness of the leaves of the Artemisia annua whole plant as opposed to the purified drug may also be partly due to the presence of other compounds such as flavonoids, in the dried leaves. 
Flavonoids are known for their anti malarial properties, and are capable of working synergistically along with other components in the leaves to fight the parasite. 
A team led by Mostafa Elfawal, microbiologist at the University of Massachusetts, fed the powdered leaves of Artemisia, grown in their lab, to mice in order to compare its effect with the pure form of artemisinin. 
They found that there was a greater reduction of malarial parasites during the course of 12 to 72 hrs in mice that were administered with a low dose of the artemisinin through dried leaves than in mice fed with the pure form of the drug. This is because artemisinin from the whole plant enters the blood stream more readily than from the drug. 
Say the researchers, ‘We found that a single dose of WP (whole plant A. annua) containing 24 mg/kg artemisinin reduces parasitemia more effectively than a comparable dose of purified drug’. 
The low dose of the drug was as effective as the high dose but the effect seems to fade away after 72 hours and hence multiple doses of the drug would be necessary to treat the malarial infection. 
 Further, using the powdered dried leaves of the whole plant instead of the purified form of artemisinin, can greatly help in reducing the cost of malarial treatment as the plant can be readily grown in most climates. Moreover, harvesting and pulverizing the leaves and checking out their potency and making capsules out of them are simple and cost-effective processes. 
The scientists believe that the potency of this simple plant as an anti malarial therapy could help local business and could also function as a socio economic stimulus in developing countries. 
Reference: 
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0052746 

 

 

Surprising connections between our well-being and giving, getting, and gratitude

 We all know that getting a good night's sleep is good for our general health and well-being. But new research is highlighting a more surprising benefit of good sleep: more feelings of gratitude for relationships.
"A plethora of research highlights the importance of getting a good night's sleep for physical and psychological well-being, yet in our society, people still seem to take pride in needing, and getting, little sleep," says Amie Gordon of the University of California, Berkeley. "And in the past, research has shown that gratitude promotes good sleep, but our research looks at the link in the other direction and, to our knowledge, is the first to show that everyday experiences of poor sleep are negatively associated with gratitude toward others – an important emotion that helps form and maintain close social bonds."
Social psychologists are increasingly finding that "prosocial" behavior – including expressing gratitude and giving to others – is key to our psychological well-being. Even how we choose to spend our money on purchases affects our health and happiness. And children develop specific ways to help others from a very young age. Gordon and other researchers will be presenting some of these latest findings at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) annual meeting today in New Orleans.
Sleeping to feel grateful
A large body of research has documented that people who experience gratitude are happier and healthier. In three new studies, Gordon and Serena Chen, also of the the University of California, Berkeley, explored how poor sleep affects people's feelings of gratitude.
In the first study, people who experienced a poor night's sleep were less grateful after listing five things in life for which they were appreciative than were people who had slept well the night before. The researchers adapted the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, which measures sleep quality and number of hours slept, among other variables, to evaluate the previous night's sleep.
In the second study, participants recorded their sleep from the previous night for two weeks and their feelings of gratitude. The researchers found a decline in gratitude associated with poor sleep, and those participants reported feeling more selfish those days.
The final study looked at heterosexual couples and found that people tend to feel less grateful toward their romantic partners if either they or their partners generally sleep poorly. "In line with this finding, people reported feeling less appreciated by their partners if they or their partner tends to sleep poorly, suggesting that the lack of gratitude is transmitted to the partner," Gordon says.
"Poor sleep is not just experienced in isolation," Gordon says. "Instead, it influences our interactions with others, such as our ability to be grateful, a vital social emotion."
Giving away money to feel wealthy
Just as expressing gratitude confers benefits, so too does giving to others. New research shows that people all around the world – from Canada to Uganda, from South Africa to India – derive more happiness from spending money on others than they do on themselves.
"For the first time, we show that giving away money or spending it on others confers the ironic psychological benefit of increasing the giver's sense of wealth," says Michael Norton of Harvard Business School and co-author with Elizabeth Dunn of the University of British Columbia of the upcoming book Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending. In a suite of new, not-yet published, studies, Norton and colleagues showed that charitable giving makes people feel wealthier.
This research follows on other recent work published in Psychological Scienceby Norton and colleagues that shows that giving time to others – from helping with homework to shoveling a neighbors' driveway – actually makes people feel that they have more time. "In fact, giving time away alleviates people's sense of time famine even more than receiving unexpected windfalls of free time."
That people feel wealthier from spending money on others may explain why poor individuals tend to give away a higher fraction of their income than members of the middle class do. In one study, researchers reported that Americans earning less than $20,000 a year give a higher percentage of their income to charity than others earning up to $300,000 a year.
"Our results suggest when the poor give money away, that very act might mitigate their feelings of poverty," Norton says. "More broadly than this specific benefit, our investigation contributes to the growing body of research documenting the benefits of prosocial behavior, which include greater happiness, reduced mortality, and better immune function."
Buying experiences to feel happy
In related research, psychologists are finding that spending money on experiential purchases, such as vacations, concerts, and meals out, tends to bring us more happiness than material purchases, such as clothing, jewelry, or electronic gadgets. Amit Kumar and Thomas Gilovich of Cornell University are investigating one potential explanation for this difference: that experiences prompt storytelling more than possessions do.
In new research, they asked participants to recall either a significant experiential purchase or a significant material purchase. They then asked them how much they had talked about the purchase they recalled, and questions related to the satisfaction they derived from their purchase. Participants rated a higher satisfaction for experiences than for possessions, which was because they were more likely to talk about the experiences with other people.
In another experiment, the researchers measured what happens when people cannot talk about their purchases. They asked participants if they would be willing to pay a price to be able to talk about a beach vacation (experiential purchase) or an electronic good (material purchase). "Participants were more likely to switch from a better purchase that they could not talk about to a lesser purchase that they could talk about in the experiential condition than in the material one," Kumar says.
"Well-being is likely to be enhanced by shifting the balance of spending in our consumer society away from material goods and towards experiential ones," Kumar says. "This research also suggests that there are benefits to be had not only by nudging people to choose experiences over possessions, but also by encouraging people to share stories about their experiences."
Knowing what is best to help others
The roots for how we give to others form at a very young age. Children, it turns out, are very sophisticated givers – not only coming to someone's aid when needed but also coming up with the best strategy for doing so, often independent of an adult's instruction.
In new research, Kristina Olson of Yale University and Alia Martin have found that children often will act, thinking they know better than others what is best for them or others. In a series of experiments, the researchers investigate whether 3-year-old children will help someone by ignoring the specific request and instead offering a better alternative.
In one study, for example, when an experimenter asks the child for a specific marker, but the child knows that marker does not work, the child will instead offer up a better marker. In another study, a pre-recorded child asks the child participant to give her a piece of chocolate via a tube that supposedly connects them. If the participant knows that chocolate makes the other child sick, the participant will decide to give her fruit snacks instead.
"Perhaps most provocatively, children will selectively decide not to help in this way if they don't like the person," Olson says. "For example, if an experimenter has previously been mean, children won't warn the adult of a potential harm – such as something sharp in the container they are reaching in – but will if the experimenter was not mean."
"These results suggest that children are able to help adults and peers already by the preschool years in rather complex ways, even when the beneficiary is misguided about what he or she wants," Olson says. "Children don't just blindly do as they are requested, but rather consider a person's goal and consider alternative possible ways to achieve that goal."
Source:Society for Personality and Social Psychology 

Mature T cells can switch function to better tackle infection

Helper cells of the immune system can switch to become killer cells in the gut

The fate of mature T lymphocytes might be a lot more flexible than previously thought. New research from the RIKEN Center for Allergy and Immunology (RCAI) in Japan and La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology (LIAI) in the USA shows for the first time that mature CD4+ helper T lymphocytes can be re-programed to become killer-like CD8+ T lymphocytes and gain killing functions.
The findings are reported today in the journal Nature Immunology, by a team of researchers led by Ichiro Taniuchi from RIKEN and Hilde Cheroutre from La Jolla. The team show using transgenic mice that mature CD4+ helper T lymphocytes that have lost the transcription factor ThPOK express genes specific to CD8+ killer T lymphocytes upon exposure to a specific environmental stimulation such as the gut. This turns them into killer cells that might act to control infection.
CD4+ helper T lymphocytes and CD8+ killer T lymphocytes are important players in the body's defense mechanism against infection. CD4+ helper T lymphocytes normally only assist other cells of the immune system during an infection, whereas CD8+ killer T cells are the main actors in the elimination of infected cells.
Both types of cells are generated in the thymus, where their early precursors develop first into cells bearing both CD4 and CD8 markers. These CD4+ CD8+ cells then differentiate into cells bearing either the CD4 or CD8 marker and take on either a helper (CD4+) or killer (CD8+) fate.
The transcription factor ThPOK is known to play a crucial role in the fate determination of T lymphocytes in the thymus. It represses genes specific to CD8+ cells in precursors of helper T cells and prevents these cells from differentiating into CD8+ killer cells. The expression of ThPOK continues in mature CD4+ helper T cells and is repressed in mature CD8+ cells.
In the study, Taniuchi, Cheroutre and colleagues show that upon deactivation of ThPOK, mature CD4+ T cells revert back to bearing both CD4 and CD8 markers in the mouse intestine. By analyzing RNA extracted from ThPOK-negative CD4+ CD8+ cells, the researchers demonstrate that the cells express various CD8+ cell-specific genes encoding for cytolitic proteins and that they have effectively differentiated into CD8+ killer T cells.
The authors conclude: "The unexpected plasticity of mature CD4+ T cells to differentiate into CD8+ cytolitic cells expands the functional capabilities of CD4+ T cells. It is possible that CD4+ T cells are also involved in direct protective functions and provide the immune system with an alternative protective mechanism."
According to them, these cells may be recruited to help in the immune response at interfaces such as the skin or mucosae, where the rapid elimination of infected cells is crucial.
Source:RIKEN 

Researchers turn one form of neuron into another in the brain

Opening a new avenue in neurobiology

A new finding by Harvard stem cell biologists turns one of the basics of neurobiology on its head – demonstrating that it is possible to turn one type of already differentiated neuron into another within the brain.
The discovery by Paola Arlotta and Caroline Rouaux "tells you that maybe the brain is not as immutable as we always thought, because at least during an early window of time one can reprogram the identity of one neuronal class into another," said Arlotta, an Associate Professor in Harvard's Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology (SCRB).
The principle of direct lineage reprogramming of differentiated cells within the body was first proven by SCRB co-chair and Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) co-director Doug Melton and colleagues five years ago, when they reprogrammed exocrine pancreatic cells directly into insulin producing beta cells.
Arlotta and Rouaux now have proven that neurons too can change their mind. The work is being published on-line today (Jan. 20) by the journalNature Cell Biology.
In their experiments, Arlotta targeted callosal projection neurons, which connect the two hemispheres of the brain, and turned them into neurons similar to corticospinal motor neurons, one of two populations of neurons destroyed in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. To achieve such reprogramming of neuronal identity, the researchers used a transcription factor called Fezf2, which long as been known for playing a central role in the development of corticospinal neurons in the embryo.
What makes the finding even more significant is that the work was done in the brains of living mice, rather than in collections of cells in laboratory dishes. The mice were young, so researchers still do not know if neuronal reprogramming will be possible in older laboratory animals – and humans. If it is possible, this has enormous implications for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.
"Neurodegenerative diseases typically effect a specific population of neurons, leaving many others untouched. For example, in ALS it is corticospinal motor neurons in the brain and motor neurons in the spinal cord, among the many neurons of the nervous system, that selectively die," Arlotta said. "What if one could take neurons that are spared in a given disease and turn them directly into the neurons that die off? In ALS, if you could generate even a small percentage of corticospinal motor neurons, it would likely be sufficient to recover basic functioning," she said.
The experiments that led to the new finding began five years ago, when "we wondered: in nature you never seen a neuron change identity; are we just not seeing it, or is this the reality? Can we take one type of neuron and turn it into another?" Arlotta and Rouaux asked themselves.
Over the course of the five years, the researchers analyzed "thousands and thousands of neurons, looking for many molecular markers as well as new connectivity that would indicate that reprogramming was occurring," Arlotta said. "We could have had this two years ago, but while this was a conceptually very simple set of experiments, it was technically difficult. The work was meant to test important dogmas on the irreversible nature of neurons in vivo. We had to prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that this was happening."
The work in Arlotta's lab is focused on the cerebral cortex, but "it opens the door to reprogramming in other areas of the central nervous system," she said.
Arlotta, an HSCI principal faculty member, is now working with colleague Takao Hensch, of Harvard's Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, to explicate the physiology of the reprogrammed neurons, and learn how they communicate within pre-existing neuronal networks.
"My hope is that this will facilitate work in a new field of neurobiology that explores the boundaries and power of neuronal reprogramming to re-engineer circuits relevant to disease," said Paola Arlotta.
Source:Harvard University 

 

'Quadruple helix' DNA discovered in human cells

Discovery opens up possibilities for a new generation of targeted therapies for cancer

In 1953, Cambridge researchers Watson and Crick published a paper describing the interweaving 'double helix' DNA structure - the chemical code for all life.
Now, in the year of that scientific landmark's 60th Anniversary, Cambridge researchers have published a paper proving that four-stranded 'quadruple helix' DNA structures - known as G-quadruplexes - also exist within the human genome. They form in regions of DNA that are rich in the building block guanine, usually abbreviated to 'G'.
The findings mark the culmination of over 10 years investigation by scientists to show these complex structures in vivo - in living human cells - working from the hypothetical, through computational modelling to synthetic lab experiments and finally the identification in human cancer cells using fluorescent biomarkers.
The research, published today in Nature Chemistry and funded by Cancer Research UK, goes on to show clear links between concentrations of four-stranded quadruplexes and the process of DNA replication, which is pivotal to cell division and production.
By targeting quadruplexes with synthetic molecules that trap and contain these DNA structures - preventing cells from replicating their DNA and consequently blocking cell division - scientists believe it may be possible to halt the runaway cell proliferation at the root of cancer.
"We are seeing links between trapping the quadruplexes with molecules and the ability to stop cells dividing, which is hugely exciting," said Professor Shankar Balasubramanian from the University of Cambridge's Department of Chemistry and Cambridge Research Institute, whose group produced the research.
"The research indicates that quadruplexes are more likely to occur in genes of cells that are rapidly dividing, such as cancer cells. For us, it strongly supports a new paradigm to be investigated - using these four-stranded structures as targets for personalised treatments in the future."
Physical studies over the last couple of decades had shown that quadruplex DNA can form in vitro - in the 'test tube', but the structure was considered to be a curiosity rather than a feature found in nature. The researchers now know for the first time that they actually form in the DNA of human cells.
"This research further highlights the potential for exploiting these unusual DNA structures to beat cancer – the next part of this pipeline is to figure out how to target them in tumour cells," said Dr Julie Sharp, senior science information manager at Cancer Research UK.
"It's been sixty years since its structure was solved but work like this shows us that the story of DNA continues to twist and turn."
The study published today was led by Giulia Biffi, a researcher in Balasubramaninan's lab at the Cambridge Research Institute.
By building on previous research, Biffi was able to generate antibody proteins that detect and bind to areas in a human genome rich in quadruplex-structured DNA, proving their existence in living human cells.
Using fluorescence to mark the antibodies, the researchers could then identify 'hot spots' for the occurrence of four-stranded DNA - both where in the genome and, critically, at what stage of cell division.
While quadruplex DNA is found fairly consistently throughout the genome of human cells and their division cycles, a marked increase was shown when the fluorescent staining grew more intense during the 's-phase' - the point in a cell cycle where DNA replicates before the cell divides.
Cancers are usually driven by genes called oncogenes that have mutated to increase DNA replication - causing cell proliferation to spiral out of control, and leading to tumour growth.
The increased DNA replication rate in oncogenes leads to an intensity in the quadruplex structures. This means that potentially damaging cellular activity can be targeted with synthetic molecules or other forms of treatments.
"We have found that by trapping the quadruplex DNA with synthetic molecules we can sequester and stabilise them, providing important insights into how we might grind cell division to a halt," said Balasubramanian.
"There is a lot we don't know yet. One thought is that these quadruplex structures might be a bit of a nuisance during DNA replication - like knots or tangles that form.
"Did they evolve for a function? It's a philosophical question as to whether they are there by design or not - but they exist and nature has to deal with them. Maybe by targeting them we are contributing to the disruption they cause."
The study showed that if an inhibitor is used to block DNA replication, quadruplex levels go down - proving the idea that DNA is dynamic, with structures constantly being formed and unformed.
The researchers also previously found that an overactive gene with higher levels of Quadruplex DNA is more vulnerable to external interference.
"The data supports the idea that certain cancer genes can be usefully interfered with by small molecules designed to bind specific DNA sequences," said Balasubramanian.
"Many current cancer treatments attack DNA, but it's not clear what the rules are. We don't even know where in the genome some of them react - it can be a scattergun approach.
"The possibility that particular cancer cells harbouring genes with these motifs can now be targeted, and appear to be more vulnerable to interference than normal cells, is a thrilling prospect.
"The 'quadruple helix' DNA structure may well be the key to new ways of selectively inhibiting the proliferation of cancer cells. The confirmation of its existence in human cells is a real landmark."
Source:University of Cambridge