Study uses music to explore the autistic brain's emotion processing

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Music has a universal ability to tap into our deepest emotions. Unfortunately, for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), understanding emotions is a very difficult task. Can music help them?

Thanks to funding from the GRAMMY Foundation Grant Program, researchers at UCLA are about to find out.

Individuals with ASD have trouble recognizing emotions, particularly social emotions conveyed through facial expressions — a frown, a smirk or a smile. This inability can rob a child of the chance to communicate and socialize and often leads to social isolation.

In an innovative study led by Istvan Molnar-Szakacs, a researcher at the UCLA Tennenbaum Center for the Biology of Creativity, music will be used as a tool to explore the ability of children with ASD to identify emotions in musical excerpts and facial expressions.

"Music has long been known to touch autistic children," Molnar-Szakacs said. "Studies from the early days of autism research have already shown us that music provokes engagement and interest in kids with ASD. More recently, such things as musical memory and pitch abilities in children with ASD have been found to be as good as or better than in typically developing children."

In addition, he said, researchers have shown that because many children with ASD are naturally interested in music, they respond well to music-based therapy.

But no one has ever done a study to see if children with ASD process musical emotions and social emotions in the same way that typically developing children do.

In this study, Molnar-Szakacs will use "emotional music" to examine the brain regions involved in emotion processing.

"Our hypothesis is that if we are able to engage the brain region involved in emotion processing using emotional music, this will open the doorway for teaching children with ASD to better recognize emotions in social stimuli, such as facial expressions."

The overarching goal of the study, of course, is to gain insights about the causes of autism. Molnar-Szakacs will use neuroimaging — functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI — to look at and compare brain activity in ASD children with brain activity in typically developing kids while both groups are engaged in identifying emotions from faces and musical excerpts.

"The study should help us to better understand how the brain processes emotion in children with autism; that, in turn, will help us develop more optimal interventions," Molnar-Szakacs said. "Importantly, this study will also help us promote the use of music as a powerful tool for studying brain functions, from cognition to creativity."

Approximately 15 children with ASD, ranging in age from 10 to 13, will participate in the study, which is being conducted under the auspices of the Help Group–UCLA Autism Research Alliance. The alliance, directed by UCLA's Elizabeth Laugeson, is an innovative partnership between the nonprofit Help Group, which serves children with special needs related to autism, and the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, and is dedicated to enhancing and expanding ASD research. The project is also being conducted in collaboration with Katie Overy, co-director of the Institute for Music in Human and Social Development at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

"The hope, of course, is that this work will not only be of scientific value and interest, but most of all, that it will translate into real-life improvements in the quality of the children's lives," Molnar-Szakacs said.

Source: University of California, Los Angeles

Permalink: http://www.sflorg.com/comm_center/unv_science/p422_105.html

Time Stamp: 5/8/2008 at 2:09:31 PM UTC

Superbug Genome Sequenced

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

The genome of a newly-emerging superbug, commonly known as Steno, has just been sequenced. The results reveal an organism with a remarkable capacity for drug resistance. The research was carried out by scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge and the University of Bristol.

Understanding the genome of this bacterium will help researchers discover how to deal with this particularly resistant organism. The paper will be published in Genome Biology.

Dr Matthew Avison from the University of Bristol, and senior author on the paper said: “This is the latest in an ever-increasing list of antibiotic-resistant hospital superbugs. The degree of resistance it shows is very worrying. Strains are now emerging that are resistant to all available antibiotics, and no new drugs capable of combating these ‘pan-resistant’ strains are currently in development.”

Pan-resistant Steno infections are at least as hard to treat as MRSA and C.diff infections. But although it is common in the environment, Steno infections are rarer than MRSA and C.diff infections and are exclusively hospital-acquired.

Steno flourishes in moist environments, such as around taps and shower heads, and can be transferred to patients. It is distinct in the way it causes infection and can only get into the body via devices such as catheters or ventilation tubes that are left in place for long periods of time. Long-dwelling catheters are used most often for seriously ill patients and some undergoing chemotherapy.

Steno can stick to the catheter and grow into a ‘biofilm’. When the catheter is next flushed, the Steno biofilm can enter the patient’s bloodstream. If their immune system is impaired (which is often the case in the seriously ill and those undergoing chemotherapy) the organism can multiply and cause septicaemia. The gravity of this situation has been underlined by the new research, since these patients will be treated with antibiotics against which Steno is largely resistant.

There are approximately 1,000 reports of Stenotrophomonas maltophilia (Steno) blood poisoning in the UK each year, with a mortality rate of about 30%. The organism is also found in the lungs of many adults with cystic fibrosis, and causes ventilator-associated pneumonias, particularly in elderly intensive-care patients.

The key questions that need to be addressed are: How does Steno stick to surfaces like catheters and ventilator tubes? How does it form biofilms and so survive attempts to decontaminate and clean? Why is it resistant to antibiotics?

Dr Lisa Crossman from the Sanger Institute and first author on the paper explained how the research might address these questions: “The genome sequence should help us to combat these properties. For example, if we know which proteins cause it to stick to surfaces, we could try to develop biochemical compounds that interfere with this interaction. If we understand its antibiotic resistance mechanisms, we might be able to design inhibitors that block them.”

While Steno infections are still relatively uncommon, they are on the increase. Furthermore, there are two other organisms that cause similar types of infections, but are more common.

Dr Avison added: “Genome sequences for these two also exist, and so now we can look at what they all have in common genetically that might explain why they are so resistant to antibiotics.”

Source: University of Bristol

Permalink: http://www.sflorg.com/comm_center/unv_science/p418_104.html

Time Stamp: 5/7/2008 at 2:54:07 PM UTC

Cod History

Monday, May 5, 2008

The humble cod may be about to have its biggest impact on history since sparking “war” with Iceland in 1972.

An international team of archaeologists led by Cambridge University have devised a new technique which uses cod bones to identify where the fish our ancestors ate during the Middle Ages were caught.

Researchers believe it could dramatically revise our understanding of how and when the human exploitation of European fish stocks – and its now devastating impact on marine life – began. While the ecological crisis caused by the intensive farming of the sea is often seen as a modern problem, the new study suggests that humans may have been influencing marine ecosystems for the last 1,000 years.

So effective is the method, which relies on the analysis of “chemical signatures” in the cod bones, that the remains of a piece of fish perhaps once enjoyed by a citizen of York in 1000 AD could, for example, be shown to have been caught in waters off the coast of Viking Norway.

“The emergence of commercial fishing represents a major watershed in European economic history and the intensity of human use of the sea,” Dr James Barrett, who led the research, said. “It may also represent the point at which people started to have an impact on marine ecosystems.”

“By analyzing the collagen in the cod bones, we can make a pretty good guess about where a fish was first caught, and that means we can track the expansion of the fishing trade at the end of the first millennium.”

Archaeologists already know that there was a fishing revolution in Europe around the period 950 to 1050 AD; an upswing which is sometimes referred to as the “fish event horizon”.

Until that point, our European ancestors had not eaten fish in large quantities since prehistoric times. Once they rediscovered their ability to harvest the seas, fish consumption rocketed, with herring and cod the most popular staples.

Our picture of how the fishing trade then developed is, however, still patchy. Strikingly, the new research suggests that almost from the start dried fish was being traded over extremely long distances, for example, from Arctic Norway into the Baltic. Rather than just plundering local waters, therefore, early medieval societies may well have been casting their net much wider, extending their economic interests at the same time.

For historians this could help mark the origins of the notion of Europe as an economic community. Earlier European societies traded small quantities of luxury items over long distances, but fish is high in bulk and low in value. The explosion of the fish trade during the 11th century suggests, therefore, that a thriving network of commercial links was developing across Europe. In many ways, this was to prove the first step towards wider European identity.

The study used bones from archaeological sites in northern and western Europe, focusing on medieval settlements in Arctic Norway and around the North Sea and the Baltic.

Studies of modern-day fish tissue have shown that it carries an “isotopic signature”; a chemical indication of what the fish have been eating and of the temperature and salinity of their marine environment. This has allowed scientists to distinguish between different populations of the same fish species.

In medieval times, cod were usually decapitated prior to salting and/or drying for long-range trade. This meant that wherever the researchers came across a cod’s skull bone, they could presume it had been caught locally.

On the other hand vertebrae, particularly those with tell-tale butchery marks, were potentially from the parts of the cod that had been sold and eaten. By cross referring their isotopic signatures with those of the skull bones, the researchers were ultimately able to match up the heads and bodies that had once belonged to cod of the same population, thousands of years ago, and often hundreds of miles apart. In most cases, the results are thought to be at least 90% accurate.

“At the moment the historical record for the growth of Northern Europe’s fishing industry is incomplete,” Dr Barrett said.

“We have already been able to hypothesis that fish were being transported over vast distances right at the start of northern Europe’s sea fishing revolution. In time we should be able to fill out a detailed picture of how what has since become a modern environmental crisis actually began.”

The findings are reported in the new edition of the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Source: University of Cambridge

Permalink: http://www.sflorg.com/comm_center/unv_science/p414_103.html

Time Stamp: 5/5/2008 at 2:08:54 PM UTC

Are you looking at me?

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Birds can tell if you are watching them – because they are watching you.

In humans, the eyes are said to be the ‘window to the soul’, conveying much about a person’s emotions and intentions. New research demonstrates for the first time that starlings also respond to a humans gaze.

Predators tend to look at their prey when they attack, so direct eye-gaze can predict imminent danger. Julia Carter, a PhD student at the University of Bristol, and her colleagues, set up experiments that showed starlings will keep away from their food dish if a human is looking at it. However, if the person is just as close, but their eyes are turned away, the birds resumed feeding earlier and consumed more food overall.

Carter said “This is a great example of how animals can pick up on very subtle signals and use them to their own advantage”. Her results are published online today (30 April) in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Wild starlings are highly social and will quickly join others at a productive foraging patch. This leads to foraging situations that are highly competitive. An individual starling that assesses a relatively low predation risk, and responds by returning more quickly to a foraging patch (as in the study), will gain valuable feeding time before others join the patch.

Responses to obvious indicators of risk – a predator looming overhead or the fleeing of other animals – are well documented, but Carter argued that a predator’s head orientation and eye-gaze direction are more subtle indicators of risk, and useful since many predators orient their head and eyes towards their prey as they attack. 

This research describes the first explicit demonstration of a bird responding to a live predator’s eye-gaze direction. Carter added: “By responding to these subtle eye-gaze cues, starlings would gain a competitive advantage over individuals that are not so observant. This work highlights the importance of considering even very subtle signals that might be used in an animal’s decision-making process.”

Do these birds understand that a human is looking at them, and that they might pose some risk?  As yet, this question has not been answered. But whether or not the responses involve some sort of theory of mind, and whether or not they are innate or acquired, the result is that starlings are able to discriminate the very subtle eye-gaze cues of a nearby live predator and adjust their anti-predator responses in a beneficial manner.

This research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and the University of Bristol.

Source: University of Bristol

Permalink: http://www.sflorg.com/comm_center/unv_science/p410_102.html

Time Stamp: 4/30/2008 at 4:19:52 PM UTC

Researchers Link Master Regulator of Innate Immunity to the Hypoxic Response

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Survival of all animals depends on their ability to withstand microbial infections and adapt to fluctuations in oxygen concentrations. These abilities depend on two ancient, evolutionary gene expression responses called the innate immune response and the hypoxic response. In a new study published in the advanced online edition of the journal Nature on April 23, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine reveal that a single protein is essential to both responses. This understanding may lead to new therapies to boost the body’s immune function or to limit inflammatory damage in tissues deprived of oxygen.

The research, led by Michael Karin, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology in UCSD’s Laboratory of Gene Regulation and Signal Transduction, and Jordi Rius, Ph.D, a postdoctoral fellow, shows that transcription factor NF kappa B (NF-κB) – previously known for its role as the master regulator of the innate immune response – is also a critical regulator of the hypoxic response.

More than ten years ago, the Karin lab identified an enzyme called IκB kinase beta (IKKβ) as the critical activator of NF-κB. In this study, the UCSD researchers interfered with activation of NF-κB by inactivating IKKβ in different cells and tissues of a laboratory mouse. When they examined how macrophages deficient in IKKβ responded to bacterial infections or oxygen deprivation, the researchers found that, in addition to the expected defect in activation of NF-κB, the macrophages also failed to accumulate HIF-1α, the master regulator of the hypoxic response. HIF-1α is normally accumulated in cells experiencing low ambient oxygen, or hypoxia; in turn, it activates several genes responsible for generating energy to allow cell survival.

Previous work by UCSD co-contributors Victor Nizet, MD, professor of pediatrics and pharmacy and Randall S. Johnson, Ph.D., professor of biology, showed that bacterial infections – which deplete infected cells and tissues of critical oxygen – lead to accumulation of HIF 1α and activation of the hypoxic response.

“The hypoxic response is important in order for macrophages and other immune cells to kill and eliminate bacteria. The surprising result of the new study is the discovery that HIF-1α accumulation is dependent on activation of NF-κB,” said Karin.

The NF-ΚΒ and HIF-1 pathways have been extensively investigated as targets for new drug therapies. “Our new understanding of the interrelationship of NF-kB and the hypoxic response provides clues toward new treatment strategies to boost the immune function of white blood cells in infected tissues.” said Nizet. “Inhibition of the hypoxic response in macrophages might also limit inflammatory damage to brain tissues following stroke or cardiac arrest”.

A unique series of mice with specific genetic alterations of HIF-1 or IKKβ in various cells and tissues have been developed in the Karin and Johnson laboratories to continue these promising lines of investigation.

Additional contributors to the paper, all at UCSD, include Gabriel G. Haddad, M.D., professor of pediatrics; Katerina Akassoglou, Ph.D., UCSD assistant professor of pharmacology; and postgraduate researchers; Monica Guma, Ph.D., Laboratory of Gene Regulation and Signal Transduction, Departments of Pharmacology and Pathology; Christian Schachtrup, Ph.D., Department of Pharmacology, and Annelies S. Zinkernagel, M.D., Department of Pediatrics.

The study was funded in part by grants from the National Institutes of Health, with additional support from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science. Michael Karin is an American Cancer Society Research Professor.

Source: University of California, San Diego

Permalink: http://www.sflorg.com/comm_center/unv_science/p405_101.html

Time Stamp: 4/23/2008 at 5:06:40 PM UTC