Science

Fertility study on mice eggs raise hope for older mothers

www.guardian.co.uk - UK research identifying loss of key protein in mice eggs is seen as a breakthrough that may help prevent birth defectsScientists have made a breakthrough in understanding why older women become less fertile, suffer a miscarriage or have a baby with Down's syndrome.The discovery could ultimately lead to treatments that would increase the chances of a successful pregnancy for growing numbers of would-be mothers in their late 30s and early 40s.Researchers led by Dr Mary Herbert, an expert in reproductive biology at Newcastle University's Institute for Ageing and Health, have identified why some older women produce abnormal eggs, according to findings published in the journal Current Biology.It has been known for a long time that would-be mothers who are nearing the end of their fertility are at higher risk than usual of having eggs that are affected by chromosomal abnormalities, but the underlying cause has been unclear.The new study has identified problems arising from a woman's declining stock of proteins called Cohesins, which act as binding agents to hold chromosomes together by keeping them inside a ring. They are vital to ensure that chromosomes split evenly when cells divide.Women's supplies of Cohesins fall as they age, Herbert and her colleagues discovered. Tests on eggs taken from both young and old mice indicated that the amount of Cohesins in women's bodies declines after their mid-30s.When that happens it means that chromosomes are less tightly held together and they are therefore more likely to result in defective eggs, which can cause problems such as miscarriage and Down's syndrome.Every cell in the human body, apart from eggs and sperm, contains two copies of each of the body's 23 chromosomes. Sperm and eggs must lose one copy each as they prepare for fertilisation. That process involves a complicated form of cell division.This problem is compounded with eggs, because the attachments that hold chromosomes together have to be maintained by Cohesins until the egg divides just before ovulation.When Herbert's team studied chromosomes during division in the egg, they found that the lower levels of Cohesin in eggs in older females led to some chromosomes becoming trapped and unable to divide properly."Reproductive fitness in women declines dramatically from the mid-30s onwards. Our findings point to Cohesin being a major culprit in this", said Herbert. More work was needed to understand why Cohesin declines over women's reproductive years, and such knowledge could lead to ways being developed to stop that loss from occurring.Dr Peter Bowen-Simpkins, the medical director of the London Women's Clinic network of private fertility clinics and spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said the study was "very exciting" and could lead to real improvements in older women's chances of having children."This breakthrough could mean the difference between success and failure - them having a baby or not - for the fast-growing number of women who are trying to conceive after their late 30s," he added.ReproductionBiologyFertility problemsGeneticsDenis Campbellguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds More... (Genetics)

Newborn babies should not be given sugar as pain relief, says study

www.guardian.co.uk - Research in The Lancet warns that existing medical practice does not work and may cause brain damageDoctors should stop giving newborn babies sugar to relieve the pain of minor medical procedures because it does not work and may damage their brains, new research in The Lancet warns today.The study says that small doses of oral sucrose do not reduce the pain which a baby feels when its heel is pricked to yield a blood sample or it has a drip put in to receive antibiotics.Its conclusions directly challenge existing medical practice. Infants are routinely given tiny amounts of sugar in hospitals, both in the UK and around the world, as a way of limiting the pain they feel when they undergo short but painful procedures. Sick babies who receive sustained treatment in the early weeks of their lives may receive many doses to help them cope with repeated invasive procedures, which also include having an injection or having blood taken from a vein."Our findings indicate that sucrose is not an effective pain relief drug. This is especially important in view of the increasing evidence that pain may cause short and long-term adverse effects on infant neurodevelopment," said Dr Rebecca Slater, who led the Medical Research Council-funded study at University College London. "While we remain unsure of the impact sucrose has, we suggest that it is not used routinely to relieve pain in infants without further investigation."Babies are usually given a dose of one-tenth of a gram of sucrose, a concentrated sugar solution, into their mouths before a procedure starts because doctors believe that it reduces, but does not remove, the pain involved. Many previous studies have found that the practice works, including a review of all the existing medical literature on it published earlier this year by the authoritative Cochrane Review.But those studies were flawed because they relied on the change in the baby's facial expression upon receiving the sugar, from puckered-up to relaxed, as proof that it works, the new study says.Instead, using different ways of measuring babies' reactions to the procedures, it has found that infants continue to feel pain, despite receiving the substance, as shown by measurements of the levels of pain activity in their brains and spinal cords after 59 newborns had undergone a routine heel prick test. Examination of the babies' leg reflexes also indicated that they felt discomfort despite receiving the sugar.Neena Modhi, a professor of neonatal medicine at Imperial College London and a vice-president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said: "This is an important study. Sucrose is given because it seems to work. If it's confirmed that sucrose doesn't work, we have a problem because we don't have any effective treatments for acutely painful procedures in newborns."But Modhi added that a bigger study, involving more babies, was needed and drug companies should speed up the development of treatments .Medical researchChildrenHealthDoctorsDenis Campbellguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds More... (Medical research)

Letters: Still wary of Bjørn Lomborg's pronouncements on climate change

www.guardian.co.uk - Bjørn Lomborg's change of mind on climate change is welcome, and some of his suggestions good, but your glowing review of his new book failed to examine deeply his shift in position (Top climate sceptic calls for $100bn fund to fight warming, 31 August).Dr Lomborg last year began to call for an investment of $100bn per year on research and development for low-carbon technologies, instead of the $25bn he was advocating 18 months ago. He now proposes that this should be raised through a carbon tax of $7 per tonne of carbon dioxide, rather than the $2 per tonne for which he previously argued.However, his strategy is alarmingly risky - invest heavily in R&D and hope that this alone will keep atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases low enough to avoid the risk of serious and damaging impacts from climate change. This might work, but it might not.A more robust approach to managing the risks of climate change would be not only to invest in R&D, but also to use a carbon tax (or cap-and-trade) to discourage greenhouse gas emissions in the short run. The latter, not raising revenue, would be the primary purpose of introducing a carbon price. But to encourage enough emissions cuts in the next few years to keep greenhouse gases at low enough atmospheric concentrations, a carbon price considerably higher than Dr Lomborg's $7 per tonne is required.We welcome the fact that Dr Lomborg has implicitly acknowledged that his previous arguments about climate change were flawed, but it would be wise to remain wary of his pronouncements, no matter how much publicity they attract.Dr Alex Bowen, Dr Simon Dietz, Dimitri Zenghelis and Bob WardGrantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, LSE  What might be of equal surprise to Bjørn Lomborg's "U-turn" is that there are practical solutions available to raise the money that is needed without dipping into cash-strapped treasuries. A Robin Hood Tax on banks, levies on shipping and aviation emissions, money raised from the auctioning of emissions allowances from emissions trading schemes and redirecting fossil fuel subsidies are all realistic options.Environment ministers from around the world meeting in Switzerland today must consider these options if the world is to move closer to a financial solution in tackling climate change and protecting poor people who are already vulnerable. Meanwhile, the shipping industry, which has faced no restrictions to its emissions so far, must begin to play its part by agreeing to a shipping levy when the International Maritime Organisation meets in London on 27 September.Phil Bloomer Campaigns and policy director, Oxfam  I note with interest that Bjørn Lomborg has changed his mind on global warming. I also note that he has a book to sell.Rod ShoneWalkern, HertfordshireClimate changeClimate change scepticismCarbon emissionsClimate changeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds More... (Climate)

Climate scientists should not write their own software, says researcher

www.guardian.co.uk - Computer scientist urges software developers to help climate scientists produce better modelling tools. From BusinessGreen, part of the Guardian Environment NetworkA study by a computer scientist at the University of Toronto suggests that the computer models used to predict climate change may be undermined due to a lack of programming expertise.Steve Easterbrook at the University's Department of Computer Science, has had his paper, Climate Change: A Grand Software Challenge, accepted by the 2010 FSE/SDP Workshop on the Future of Software Engineering Research. In the paper, he suggests that because many climate prediction software modelling tools are built by climate scientists rather than software engineers some of the resulting software has room for improvement.Climate scientists commonly use so-called Global Circulation Models (GCMs) that simulate the atmosphere, oceans, cryosphere and biosphere at a global scale, Easterbrook said. Underpinning them are data analysis tools designed to crunch the underlying numbers."Most of this software is built by the climate scientists themselves, who have little or no training in software engineering," said Easterbrook in his paper. "As a result the quality of this software varies tremendously: The GCMs tend to be exceptionally well engineered, while some data processing tools are barely even tested."Easterbrook called for climate scientists to use applications written by experts in software design that would enable cross-disciplinary work to address climate change questions. These analysis tools would be proven capable of processing "earth models", he said.Secondly, Easterbrook argued that information sharing systems, such as games, reputation analysis software, and crowdsourcing tools could help to disseminate information on climate change efficiently and responsibly.Finally, he said that energy efficient green IT systems are needed to reduce power consumption in all areas where climate modelling software is used."A massive mobilisation of talent will be needed. Other disciplines are already developing disciplinary responses to this challenge," Easterbrook concluded. "It is time for the software community to step up to the plate."Climate changeClimate changeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds More... (Climate)

Software developers urged to help out with climate models

www.guardian.co.uk - Computer scientist urges software developers to help climate scientists produce better modelling tools. From BusinessGreen, part of the Guardian Environment NetworkA study by a computer scientist at the University of Toronto suggests that the computer models used to predict climate change may be undermined due to a lack of programming expertise.Steve Easterbrook at the University's Department of Computer Science, has had his paper, Climate Change: A Grand Software Challenge, accepted by the 2010 FSE/SDP Workshop on the Future of Software Engineering Research. In the paper, he suggests that because many climate prediction software modelling tools are built by climate scientists rather than software engineers some of the resulting software has room for improvement.Climate scientists commonly use so-called Global Circulation Models (GCMs) that simulate the atmosphere, oceans, cryosphere and biosphere at a global scale, Easterbrook said. Underpinning them are data analysis tools designed to crunch the underlying numbers."Most of this software is built by the climate scientists themselves, who have little or no training in software engineering," said Easterbrook in his paper. "As a result the quality of this software varies tremendously: The GCMs tend to be exceptionally well engineered, while some data processing tools are barely even tested."Easterbrook called for climate scientists to use applications written by experts in software design that would enable cross-disciplinary work to address climate change questions. These analysis tools would be proven capable of processing "earth models", he said.Secondly, Easterbrook argued that information sharing systems, such as games, reputation analysis software, and crowdsourcing tools could help to disseminate information on climate change efficiently and responsibly.Finally, he said that energy efficient green IT systems are needed to reduce power consumption in all areas where climate modelling software is used."A massive mobilisation of talent will be needed. Other disciplines are already developing disciplinary responses to this challenge," Easterbrook concluded. "It is time for the software community to step up to the plate." This article was amended on 2 September after Steve Easterbrook said the original headline - "Climate scientists should not write their own software, says researcher" - was inaccurate.Climate changeClimate changeProgrammingComputingguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds More... (Climate)

Psychedelic drugs return as potential treatments for mental illness | Moheb Costandi

www.guardian.co.uk - New research confirms that psychedelic drugs are promising treatments for depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and schizophreniaMoheb Costandi writes the Neurophilosophy blogLong before hippie poster boy Timothy Leary invited the world to "Turn on, tune in and drop out", a group of pioneering psychiatrists working in Canada began to treat alcoholics with lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), and reported unprecedented recovery rates. Far from being at the fringes of medical research, their work was fully supported and funded by the Canadian government, and became a promising new area of research that played a role in modernising the field of psychiatry. But despite the encouraging results, studies of LSD therapy ended abruptly in the late 1960s, and did not resume again until some 40 years later. At the cutting edge of early psychedelic research was one Humphry Osmond (1917-2004), a British psychiatrist at the Weyburn Mental Hospital in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It was Osmond who gave the novelist Aldous Huxley his first dose of mescaline in 1953, and coined the term "psychedelic" in 1957. Between the years of 1954 and 1960, Osmond and his colleague Abram Hoffer treated some 2,000 chronic alcoholics with LSD. None of these patients had responded to other treatments, and yet, Osmond and Hoffer reported that up to 45% of those treated with a single large dose of the drug abstained from drinking for at least a year afterwards. Other researchers in Canada, Britain, the United States and elsewhere began experimenting with LSD therapy, and by the time the drug hit the streets in the early 1960s, there were more than a thousand published research papers that described promising results in over 40,000 patients. These studies took place alongside trials of newly developed compounds such as the antipsychotic chlorpromazine and the tricyclic antidepressant imipramine. This body of work effectively established the new field of psychopharmacology, which led psychiatrists to abandon the psychoanalytical approach they had been using since the turn of the century, and begin to consider alcoholism and mental illnesses in terms of disrupted brain chemistry.Although the results of many of the early studies into LSD therapy were promising, investigations of the potential therapeutic benefits of the psychedelic drugs stopped towards the end of the decade, for two main reasons.First, some began to question the methods used in the studies, arguing that they lacked scientific rigour, and few, if any, other researchers managed to replicate the high recovery rates reported by Osmond and Hoffer. Many therefore viewed the early studies as providing nothing more than anecdotal evidence for the therapeutic benefits of LSD.Second, and more importantly, the cultural and political climate became less conducive to psychedelic research. LSD became a popular recreational drug towards the end of the 1960s, and came to be associated with the hippie counterculture, anti-authoritarianism and social disobedience. As a result, research funding quickly dried up, and the drug was eventually criminalised by the US and other governments in 1970. The past decade has seen renewed interest in the potential therapeutic benefits of LSD and other psychedelic drugs, and the availability of sophisticated techniques such as functional neuroimaging is beginning to provide fresh insights into how they affect the brain. The new research confirms that the psychedelic drugs do indeed have therapeutic value for a number of psychiatric conditions, including depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and schizophrenia. It also points to various brain mechanisms which may underly their beneficial effects. We now know that the so-called classical hallucinogens (LSD, psilocybin and mescaline) activate 5-HT2A receptors - which normally bind the neurotransmitter serotonin - in the deep layers of the prefrontal cortex. This in turn alters nerve cell signalling mediated by the transmitters glutamate and dopamine, and may also lead to changes in the strength of connections between neurons in the cortex and other parts of the brain.Serotonin and dopamine convey messages in the brain circuits involved in mood, and psychedelic drugs apparently alleviate the clinical symptoms of mood disorders by modulating the activity of the cells in these circuits and by modifying their connections.The very latest research shows that ketamine, an anaesthetic with hallucinogenic properties, can reduce the symptoms of depression quickly and effectively, and that MDMA (popularly known as ecstasy) can be beneficial to sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder when used in combination with behavioural therapy.By contrast, new research into the effects of the classical hallucinogens has progressed at a much slower pace, probably because these drugs are categorised as Class A in the UK (Schedule I in the US), and researchers who wish to obtain them therefore face numerous regulatory barriers.Nevertheless, it now seems quite clear that psychedelic drugs have enormous potential for treating a wide variety of psychiatric conditions. Much still remains to be discovered about exactly how they affect the brain, however. For example, optimising their clinical benefits will require a better understanding of how their molecular structures are related to their activity, and of how each drug can be combined with psychotherapeutic approaches to achieve the best results. Furthermore, because most psychedelics can mimic the symptoms of naturally occurring psychoses - they can, for example, induce hallucinations and disorganised thought processes - future research may reveal some of the brain mechanisms underlying schizophrenia and related conditions.The debate that occurred in the 1960s about the therapeutic use of LSD mirrors the one taking place today over the use of MDMA, so the history of LSD experimentation could provide valuable lessons about how to incorporate these controversial drugs into modern medicine.Moheb Costandi is a molecular and developmental neurobiologist who writes the Neurophilosophy blogFurther readingThe secret history of psychedelic research (Neurophilosophy)Serotonin, psychedelics and depression (The Neuroskeptic)Ketamine for depression: yay or neigh? (The Neurocritic)Visions of a psychedelic future (Mind Hacks)Vollenweider, F. X. & Kometer, M. (2010). The neurobiology of psychedelic drugs: implications for the treatment of mood disorders. Nature Reviews Neuroscience; 11: 642-651.DrugsPsychologyMedical researchBiochemistry and molecular biologyChemistryDrugsHealthDepression in adultsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds More... (Medical research)