Schizophrenia: A disorder of neurodevelopment and accelerated aging?

Mar. 6, 2013 ? Many lines of evidence indicate that schizophrenia is a disorder of neurodevelopment. For example, genes implicated in the heritable risk for schizophrenia are also implicated in the development of nerve cells and their connections. Numerous findings in brain imaging studies describe the changes in brain structure and function associated with schizophrenia as emerging early in the course of the disorder. Some early brain imaging studies even found little or no evidence of progression of structural deficits.

Yet, a new generation of studies now also describes degenerative processes in schizophrenia that resemble accelerated aging. Schizophrenia is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular illnesses and persons with schizophrenia have shorter average lifespans. Studies have also found that individuals with schizophrenia have shortened telomeres, a marker of aging. Structural imaging studies describe enhanced reductions in gray and white matter volumes and increased cortical thinning with age associated with schizophrenia. Similar findings have also emerged for individuals diagnosed with major depressive disorder.

This evidence led researchers of a new study in Biological Psychiatry to specifically examine age-related decline in cerebral white matter in schizophrenia and major depressive disorder, using a measure of microstructural integrity called fractional anisotropy. For comparison, they recruited two normal control groups, one for each cohort.

Dr. Peter Kochunov, first author of the study, explained their findings: "This study showed that the brain's white matter, or the wiring of the brain, ages faster in patients with schizophrenia compared with people who do not have a mental illness. In comparison, the white matter in people with major depression ages similarly to people without a mental illness."

"We are getting a clear picture that a component of the biology of schizophrenia progresses with age. However, I am afraid that we have relatively little understanding of how or why this progression occurs. Thus, it seems that we are at the beginning of exploring a new dimension of the illness that may hold clues to preventing functional decline associated with schizophrenia," commented Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry.

Kochunov agrees, adding that they already have additional work planned. "Our next step is to find the cause of this disease-specific effect on accelerated aging by schizophrenia and determine whether it relates to the cause or the consequence of schizophrenia."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Elsevier.

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Journal Reference:

1. Peter Kochunov, David C. Glahn, Laura M. Rowland, Rene L. Olvera, Anderson Winkler, Yi-Hong Yang, Hemalatha Sampath, Will T. Carpenter, Ravindranath Duggirala, Joanne Curran, John Blangero, L. Elliot Hong. Testing the Hypothesis of Accelerated Cerebral White Matter Aging in Schizophrenia and Major Depression. Biological Psychiatry, 2013; 73 (5): 482 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2012.10.002

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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/-NuJIbqi-H0/130306084203.htm

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This DIY, 3D-Printed Violin Is Nearly Ready To Play Beautiful Music

Like many complex 3D-printed projects, this violin isn't entirely made on a 3D printer but it's interesting nonetheless. It is a violin that costs about $12 to build and uses paper, 3D printed parts, and some cheap wire to make an instrument that, while not pretty to look at, is definitely capable of making some sort of music.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/UleLcREmcGU/

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New report confirms almost half of Africa's lions facing extinction

Mar. 5, 2013 ? A new report concludes that nearly half of Africa's wild lion populations may decline to near extinction over the next 20-40 years without urgent conservation measures. The plight of many lion populations is so bleak, the report concludes that fencing them in -- and fencing humans out -- may be their only hope for survival.

Led by the University of Minnesota's Professor Craig Packer and co-authored by a large team of lion biologists, including Panthera's President, Dr. Luke Hunter, and Lion Program Director, Dr. Guy Balme, the report, entitled Conserving large carnivores: dollars and fence, was published today in the scientific journal Ecology Letters.

"It is clear that fences work and unfenced populations are extremely expensive to maintain," said Craig Packer, who also sits on Panthera's Cat Advisory Council. Using field data from 11 African countries, the Ecology Letters study examines the cost of managing fenced and unfenced habitats, and compares lion population densities and trends in both. The report shows that conservation costs are lower, and lion population sizes and densities are greater, in reserves secured by wildlife-proof fences, compared to unfenced ecosystems. Lions in unfenced reserves were subject to a higher degree of threats from human communities, including retaliatory killing by herders, habitat loss and fragmentation, and overhunting of lion prey.

Panthera's Dr. Luke Hunter explained, "These findings highlight the severity of the lion conservation crisis today and the limited choices we have to ensure a future for the species. No one wants to resort to putting any more fences around Africa's marvelous wild areas, but without massive and immediate increases in the commitment to lion conservation, we may have little choice."

Whether fencing or some alternative physical boundary such as intensely managed buffer zones, it is clear that separating lion and human populations will be essential for the species' survival. Along with maintaining physical boundaries, conflict mitigation initiatives such as those carried out through Panthera's Project Leonardo and the Lion Guardians program, are required to reduce the killing of lions where humans and lions share the landscape.

Panthera's Dr. Guy Balme stated, "We have shown that it is possible to keep both humans and lions in African landscapes by reducing lion-human conflict, but it requires extensive resources. As the numbers of people and their livestock continue to grow in Africa, it is essential to scale up these programs to avert losing many lion populations."

Today, it is estimated that fewer than 30,000 lions remain in Africa in just 25% of the species' original natural habitat.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/sak7TWbIPvQ/130305174625.htm

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Mexico, US sign tomato pricing agreement

MEXICO CITY (AP) ? Mexico says its tomato growers have signed and implemented a new agreement with the United States to end a dispute over trade in fresh tomatoes.

The agreement was proposed in early February and submitted to a public comment period.

Mexico's Economy Department said Monday that the final agreement has been signed with U.S. Department of Commerce officials. It said the agreement "provides a framework of certainty and stability" for its growers.

The agreement strengthens anti-dumping enforcement and resets minimum wholesale prices, after Florida tomato growers complained that Mexican producers were selling fresh tomatoes for less than the production cost.

Mexico's tomato trade with the U.S. was worth more than $1.8 billion in 2011.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-03-04-LT-Mexico-US-Tomatoes/id-dc4a7443089b464b8030682900c8dbad

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Wolf in sheep's clothing: Uncovering how deadly bacteria trick the immune system

Friday, March 1, 2013

An outbreak of tuberculosis in the skid row area of downtown Los Angeles may have exposed up to 4,500 individuals to the bacterium that causes the deadly disease and has left federal officials scrambling to intervene.

The outbreak is occurring during winter, when homeless individuals are driven to crowded shelters, when influenza is peaking and when people's vitamin D levels, typically boosted by sunlight exposure, are low. A new UCLA study offers critical insight into how various bacteria may manipulate such factors to their advantage.

In a study published online Feb. 28 in the journal Science, UCLA researchers demonstrate that certain cunning bacteria ? including the type that causes tuberculosis ? can pretend to be viruses when infecting humans, allowing them to hijack the body's immune response so that they can hide out, unhindered, inside our cells. The findings may also help explain how viral infections like the flu make us more susceptible to subsequent bacterial infections such as pneumonia.

The study is particularly relevant to tuberculosis, which kills 1.4 million people worldwide each year. In the case of the recent Los Angeles outbreak, the findings could provide clues as to how the flu and a lack of vitamin D may have given the tuberculosis bacterium an edge.

"With 8.7 million in the world falling ill with tuberculosis each year, a better understanding of how these bacteria avoid our immune system could lead to new ways to fight them and to better, more targeted treatments," said senior author Dr. Robert L. Modlin, chief of dermatology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics in the UCLA Division of Life Sciences.

The protection our immune system provides against bacteria-based diseases and infections depends on the critical response of T cells ? white blood cells that play a central role in fighting infections ? and in particular on the release of a protein called interferon-gamma. Interferon-gamma utilizes the vitamin D hormone to alert and activate cells to destroy invading bacteria.

The research team found that bacteria can pretend to be viruses, triggering the immune system to launch an attack with a different protein, called interferon-beta, which is designed to fight viruses, not bacteria. Not only is interferon-beta ineffective against bacteria, but it can also block the action of interferon-gamma, to the advantage of bacteria. Further, if a real virus were to infect the body, triggering interferon-beta, it would divert the attention of the immune response, preventing an attack on the bacterial invader. The researchers say this may explain why the flu can lead to a more serious bacterial-based infection like pneumonia.

"Like a wolf in sheep's clothing, the bacteria can fool the immune system into launching an attack against the wrong type of infection, thus weakening the response against the bacteria," said first author Rosane M. B. Teles, a researcher in the dermatology division at the Geffen School of Medicine.

For the study, the team examined the mechanisms by which the virus-fighting interferon-beta protein suppresses the interferon-gamma defense response to bacterial infections, tricking the immune system into making the wrong defense choices.

The researchers studied leprosy as a model and then applied what they learned to understand tuberculosis, given that leprosy and tuberculosis are caused by related bacteria. Modlin noted that leprosy is an outstanding model for studying immune mechanisms in host defense since it presents as a clinical spectrum that correlates with the level and type of immune response of the pathogen.

The scientists first compared the genetic expression of the virus-fighting interferon-beta protein and the bacteria-fighting interferon-gamma protein in skin lesions from leprosy patients. They found that interferon-gamma was expressed in patients with the milder form of the disease and that interferon-beta was significantly increased in those with the more serious, progressive form of leprosy.

The researchers then compared the genes triggered by interferon-beta in these leprosy skin lesions with those found by two other groups of investigators in the blood of tuberculosis patients. Remarkably, there was a significant overlap. The interferon-beta genes were more frequent in both the skin lesions of leprosy patients with extensive disease and the blood of tuberculosis patients with more severe disease.

"We found this common interferon-beta gene pattern correlated with the greater extent of disease in both leprosy and tuberculosis, which are two very distinct diseases," Teles said.

Previous work by the UCLA team demonstrated that the interferon-gamma defense pathway relies on a specific mechanism involving vitamin D, a natural hormone that plays an essential role in the body's fight against infections. The current study found that interferon-beta suppressed elements involved in the interferon-gamma?triggered vitamin D pathway, preventing the immune system from killing the bacteria.

"The study raises the possibility that a decrease or increase of one of these two interferon proteins could shift the balance from mild to more serious disease," Modlin said. "We may find that therapeutic interventions to block or enhance specific interferon responses may be an effective strategy to alter the balance in favor of protection against bacterial diseases."

The new findings may indicate why, in winter, Los Angeles skid row residents are at an added disadvantage in dealing with tuberculosis ? for at least three reasons. First, because of colder weather at night, indigent homeless people tend to stay in shelters, where they live in close proximity with others, facilitating the spread of the infection. Second, due to the seasonal rise in influenza, the body's immune system could be diverted by the flu virus to produce interferon-beta, blocking an effective immune response to the tuberculosis bacteria. And finally, the drop in vitamin D levels associated with a decrease in exposure to sunlight during the winter months could diminish the ability of individuals' immune systems to kill the tuberculosis bacteria.

"With TB on the rise, this scenario could play out not only in cities in the United States but all over the world," Modlin said. "We hope that our findings may provide insight into harnessing new methods to combat TB and other bacterial infections as well."

Modlin noted that 8.7 million become ill with tuberculosis each year, and 1.4 million die from the disease. He added that an increase or decrease in one of the two interferon proteins could help explain why some people may be more resilient against or susceptible to the infection or have a more serious course of the disease.

The next step, according to Teles, is to further understand the mechanisms that bacterial pathogens use to activate interferon-beta and how bacteria can manipulate the immune system to block the potent interferon-gamma host antimicrobial responses in human infections.

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University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences: http://www.uclahealth.org/

Thanks to University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Toxic oceans may have delayed spread of complex life

Feb. 28, 2013 ? A new model suggests that inhospitable hydrodgen-sulphide rich waters could have delayed the spread of complex life forms in ancient oceans. The research, published online this week in the journal Nature Communications, considers the composition of the oceans 550-700 million years ago and shows that oxygen-poor toxic conditions, which may have delayed the establishment of complex life, were controlled by the biological availability of nitrogen.

In contrast to modern oceans, data from ancient rocks indicates that the deep oceans of the early Earth contained little oxygen, and flipped between an iron-rich state and a toxic hydrogen-sulphide-rich state. The latter toxic sulphidic state is caused by bacteria that survive in low oxygen and low nitrate conditions. The study shows how bacteria using nitrate in their metabolism would have displaced the less energetically efficient bacteria that produce sulphide -- meaning that the presence of nitrate in the oceans prevented build-up of the toxic sulphidic state.

The model, developed by researchers at the University of Exeter in collaboration with Plymouth Marine Laboratory, University of Leeds, UCL (University College London) and the University of Southern Denmark, reveals the sensitivity of the early oceans to the global nitrogen cycle. It shows how the availability of nitrate, and feedbacks within the global nitrogen cycle, would have controlled the shifting of the oceans between the two oxygen-free states -- potentially restricting the spread of early complex life.

Dr Richard Boyle from the University of Exeter said: "Data from the modern ocean suggests that even in an oxygen-poor ocean, this apparent global-scale interchange between sulphidic and non-sulphidic conditions is difficult to achieve. We've shown here how feedbacks arising from the fact that life uses nitrate as both a nutrient, and in respiration, controlled the interchange between two ocean states. For as long as sulphidic conditions remained frequent, Earth's oceans were inhospitable towards complex life."

Today, an abundance of nitrate, in the context of an oxygenated ocean, prevents a reversion to the inhospitable environment that inhibited early life. Determining how Earth's oceans have established long-term stability helps us to understand how modern oceans interact with life and also sheds light on the sensitivity of oceans to changes in composition.

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Journal Reference:

1. R.A. Boyle, J.R. Clark, S.W. Poulton, G. Shields-Zhou, D.E. Canfield, T.M. Lenton. Nitrogen cycle feedbacks as a control on euxinia in the mid-Proterozoic ocean. Nature Communications, 2013; 4: 1533 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2511

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/CUPC19XVN4w/130228113447.htm

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Top 5 Financially Savvy Transportation Choices | 20s Money

Since the economic crisis in 2008, many hard-working Americans were left without the necessities that many of us take for granted. Things like the costs of a decent home, food prices, and transportation became a bigger part of the national conversation and many have taken a hard look at their monthly budgets. After the national wake-up call from came five years ago, people have become more aware of exactly how much they spend on transportation. Here are five every-day transportation choices that financially savvy are switching too in an effort to save some cash.

1.??? Bicycle

Riding your bike to work is a smart, healthy and energy efficient way to cut down on transportation costs. Every day, more and more Americans are ditching their gas guzzling vehicles for the simplicity of a bicycle. According to a Census Bureau report, more than 77,000 people used a bicycle as their primary means of transportation to work in 2011. Despite some people?s reluctance to cycle regularly, riding a bike can improve your physical health, and bring you closer to your local community. There?s something special about riding through the streets and sidewalks; not isolating yourself behind a windshield. Most importantly, riding a bike could save you nearly $250-$300 a month. That?s a lot of dough!

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2.??? Public Transportation

There?s no shame in taking a bus or train as part of your daily commute. In fact, in many of America?s bigger cities, driving yourself to work is just impractical. Even if you don?t live in a large metropolitan area, supplementing your normal transportation choices with public alternatives is a great way to save some extra cash. It can also be used as a period of relaxation during your day. Trade in traffic jams and fighting over parking spots for a good book you read while taking the Metrorail.

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3.??? Carpooling

Carpooling is a great way to save money without comprising on convenience. Gather up your co-workers and claim the holy grail of morning rush hour traffic ? the carpool lane! It?s simple math really. If you share the cost of gas with 4 people, you?ll only pay a quarter of what you normally would pay on the road. Plus, taking a ride with your colleagues can help to improve your mood (granted you all get along) and start your day off right.

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4.??? Motorcycle

Strap on your helmet and hit the road! Motorcycles are a cheap and stylish alternative option for those looking for a bit of thrill in their ride. Motorcycles generally run much cheaper than a standard vehicle and are much more fuel efficient. A typical motorcycle tops out at 60 mpg. To put that in perspective, a hybrid car tops out at 50 mpg. Now that?s efficiency! If you enjoy the thrill of the wind blowing in your hair and don?t need to haul around a bunch of kids, than a motorcycle could be the money-saving transportation choice you?ve been looking for.

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5.??? Fuel Efficient Vehicle

Despite all of the great alternative vehicle choices for those on a budget, nothing can really beat the convenience and practicality of owning your own vehicle. The good news is that since the economic collapse, auto manufacturers have stepped up to the demand for more fuel efficient and energy saving vehicles. Hybrid vehicles can help you to save money on gas and reduce your carbon footprint. Even high end auto brands like Cadillac sell hybrids and hybrid SUVs which you can see at www.williamsoncadillac.com. At the end of the day, parents and those who need vehicles to use on job sites don?t have many options when it comes to their transportation choices. It?s better to go with something that will use up less gas.

Source: http://20smoney.com/2013/02/28/top-5-financially-savvy-transportation-choices/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=top-5-financially-savvy-transportation-choices

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