caffeinepig

嗯....要趕快建議我爸爸去試試...
Acupressure (applying pressure with the thumbs or fingertips to the same points on the body stimulated in acupuncture) seems to be more effective in reducing low back pain than physical therapy, finds a study published online by the British Medical Journal. Low back pain is a common health problem worldwide. In previous studies, acupressure has been shown to be effective in alleviating various types of pain, but little is known about its effect on low back pain. Researchers in Taiwan recruited 129 patients with chronic low back pain from a specialist orthopaedic clinic. All patients completed a standard disability questionnaire before being randomly allocated to two treatment groups: 64 patients received six sessions of acupressure and 65 patients received physical therapy. Results were analysed immediately after treatment and again after six months. The mean disability score after treatment was significantly lower in the acupressure group than in the physical therapy group. In fact acupressure conferred an 89% reduction in disability compared with physical therapy, after adjusting for pre-treatment disability. This improvement lasted for six months. Benefit was also greater in the acupressure group for variables such as "leg pain," "pain interferes with normal work," and "days off from work/school."

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a transitional stage between normal cognition and Alzheimer's disease, exists in two different forms, according to a study published today by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the University of California, Los Angeles in the Archives of Neurology. Using a new imaging procedure that creates 3-D maps of the brain, researchers determined specific areas that had degenerated in people with MCI. Depending on the person's symptoms, more tissue was lost in the hippocampus, a brain area critical for memory and one of the earliest to change in Alzheimer's disease, indicating two different paths of progression to Alzheimer's disease. The finding could lead to better diagnosis and treatment of patients with MCI, perhaps delaying or preventing the onset of dementia. MCI is categorized into two sub-types -- currently distinguished based solely on symptoms. Those with MCI, amnesic subtype (MCI-A) have memory impairments only, while those with MCI, multiple cognitive domain subtype (MCI-MCD) have other types of mild impairments, such as in judgment or language, but also have either mild or no memory loss. Both sub-types progress to Alzheimer's disease at the same rate. Until now it was not known if the pathologies of the two types of MCI were different, or if MCI-MCD was just a more advanced form of MCI-A. Researchers found that the hippocampus of the patients with MCI-A was 14 percent smaller than that of the healthy subjects, nearly as great as the 23 percent shrinkage seen in Alzheimer's disease. But, the hippocampus of those with MCI-MCD most resembled that of the controls, showing only 5 percent shrinkage. Using highly accurate Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data from six patients with MCI-A, 20 with MCI-MCD and 20 with Alzheimer's disease who were seen at the University of Pittsburgh's Alzheimer Disease Research Center and 20 healthy controls, researchers created 3-D mesh reconstructions of each participant's hippocampus that allowed them to see where the hippocampus had deteriorated. This study is the first to use such modeling technology to visualize changes in the brains of people with MCI. Prior studies have only been able to measure the volume of the hippocampus and estimate atrophy through noticeable volume loss. "These vibrant images produced by 3-D modeling have proven what we suspected -- there are at least two transitional states that lead to Alzheimer's disease," said James T. Becker, Ph.D., a neuropsychologist and professor of psychiatry, neurology and psychology, at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and lead author of the study. "Now we can investigate these pathways and develop treatments that, we hope, may slow or stop the progression of Alzheimer's." Alzheimer's disease affects as many as 10 percent of people older than 65, and delaying or preventing the onset of dementia is an important medical priority. "We can now see the pattern of brain damage in people with MCI and we can use these new types of images to monitor how different therapies may be working," said Paul M. Thompson, Ph.D., associate professor of neurology, at the University of California, Los Angeles. "By imaging the brain like this, we can explore the progression of diseases, and see if therapies are protecting the brain." Source: University of Pittsburgh Medical Center 
Date: 2006-01-17
URL: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/01/060117023837.htm
 

看到這篇研究的標題，好奇的讀了下去，因為我們實驗室也有在做driving的研究。不過這篇研究只是間接的做了一些行為的研究 （例如：看到紅點按鈕，然後除了看到紅點要按鈕外，看到特定顏色和形狀的東西，也要按鈕）。然後，看他們反應時間來看大腦如何處理、轉移對於這兩個不同的認知工作。用這個結果，來間接討論「開車講電話」對於大腦的負荷有多少。
我們做的比較直接，真得就像是在開車：分成4個部分的實驗，結合了GM， UMTRI （還有一些研究機構和醫院）分別用MEG、MRI、Behavioral experiment、on-road driving test 做how does cell phone distract our coginition during driving 的實驗。是一的非常有趣的研究，有將近5年之久的計畫。雖然這不是我的研究，但是我都參與了全部的過程，像是找受試者、執行實驗、研究分析等等...我學了很多就是了...^^
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Cell Phones, Driving Don't Mix

Most people can rather efficiently walk and chew gum at the same time, but when it comes to more complicated "multi-tasking" – like driving and talking on a cell phone – there is a price to pay.And no one, it seems, is immune."There is a cost for switching from one task to another and that cost can be in response time or in accuracy," saidMei-Ching Lien, an assistant professor of psychology at Oregon State University. "Even with a seemingly simple task, structural cognitive limitations can prevent you from efficiently switching to a new task."Psychologists who study multi-tasking have argued for years about whether these "information bottlenecks" occur because people are inherently lazy, or because they have a fundamental inability to switch from one task to another. New studies by Lien and her colleagues at the NASA Ames Research Center in California suggest it is the latter.Results of their study have been published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.In their study the researchers asked volunteers to respond to a variety of auditory and visual cues then measured the responses. When the volunteers prepared for one task, such as responding to the color red, their responses were swift and accurate. When the researchers added a second element – the recognition of shapes as well as color – the task switch considerably delayed the responses, even when the volunteers were prepared for it."People are surprised that there is such a delay," Lien said. "Practice can help a person reduce the 'cost' of switching tasks, but it apparently cannot eliminate that cost."Lien said the study can be applied to the real world, especially to drivers who talk on cell phones. On the surface, she said, it appears that drivers are trying to accomplish just two tasks – driving and conversing. But each task is complicated and multi-faceted, greatly increasing the "cost" of switching. The result: inattention and slow reaction times."A lot of people think talking on the cell phone while driving is natural, but each time someone asks a question or changes the subject, it's like taking on a new task," Lien said. "It requires a certain amount of thought and preparation. It's actually quite different than listening to the radio, where you don't need to respond."And it's also different from talking to a passenger in the vehicle," she added. "In most cases, a passenger can observe when there is a dangerous traffic situation and keep quiet. But someone calling you on a cell phone won't have a clue."There are individual differences in the costs of multi-tasking, Lien said. In her lab studies, a typical response to a single stimulus might take 300 milliseconds. Adding a second task increases the response to about 800 milliseconds. A millisecond is 1/1000th of a second, so the delay may not seem like much – until you extend the difference to a car driving 60 miles an hour and realize the response rate more than doubles, Lien said.In her lab studies, she has yet to test any volunteers who are immune to delays in multi-tasking, though she says some students do much better than others."I have to say that the best ones are those who play a lot of video games," she pointed out. "Those are lab studies, however, and not driving tests."She became interested in multi-tasking while working at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett, Calif., where she was part of a team analyzing cockpit design and pilot function. One of the projects focused on how much information can safely and efficiently be included on screens and monitors so the pilots' delay and loss of accuracy are minimized."We learned to modify some of the screens to mitigate their weaknesses," she said.While Lien's studies suggest that simplifying tasks leads to greater efficiency, technology is complicating everything we do – including driving. Drivers often use cell phones, CD players, global positioning systems, radar detectors, complicated dashboards and other devices. At the same time, they must navigate increasing traffic, read a plethora of signs, and handle other distractions."We may be undermining our ability to drive safely," Lien said. 
Source: Oregon State University 

A team of Spanish and American neuroscientists has discovered neurons in the mammalian brainstem that focus exclusively on new, novel sounds, helping humans and other animals ignore ongoing, predictable sounds. These "novelty detector neurons" quickly stop firing if a sound or sound pattern is repeated, but will briefly resume firing whenever some aspect of the sound changes, according to Ellen Covey, one of the authors of the study and a psychology professor at the University of Washington. The neurons can detect changes in the pitch, loudness or duration of a single sound and can even detect changes in the pattern of a complex series of sounds, she said. Covey and her colleagues, Dr. Manuel Malmierca of the University of Salamanca and doctoral student David Perez-Gonzalez, who is currently a visiting scientist in the UW psychology department, report their findings in the early December issue of the European Journal of Neuroscience. The neurons are located under the cortex in a part of the brain called the inferior colliculus. Covey said the research implies that these cells can "remember a frequently occurring pattern and perform relatively sophisticated cognitive tasks such as discriminating a novel pattern from a frequently occurring one." She said that, contrary to popular belief, the new findings suggest that some cognitive processes for sorting and identifying sounds occur very early in the auditory pathway, and that novelty detector neurons could be involved in directing attention to unexpected sounds, possibly evoking rapid reflex responses.

Researchers from the University of Cincinnati (UC) have found that eating or drinking sweets may decrease the production of the stress-related hormone glucocorticoid--which has been linked to obesity and decreased immune response. 
這不是大家都已經知道了嗎？"Glucocorticoids are produced when psychological or physical stressors activate a part of the brain called the 'stress axis,'" said Yvonne Ulrich-Lai, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of psychiatry. "These hormones help an individual survive and recover from stress, but have been linked to increased abdominal obesity and decreased immune function when produced in large amounts."Finding another way to affect the body's response to stress and limit glucocorticoid production could alleviate some of these dangerous health effects." The laboratory findings were presented during a poster session Tuesday, Nov. 15, at the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington, D.C. Dr. Ulrich-Lai and a team of researchers from the department of psychiatry showed that when laboratory rats chose to eat or drink sweet snacks their bodies produced lower levels of glucocorticoid. She said that sweets--especially those made from sugar, not artificial sweetener--might do the trick."The sweets we are talking about are not the low-calorie, sugar-substitute variety," said Dr. Ulrich-Lai. "We actually found that sugar snacks, not artificially sweetened snacks, are better 'self-medications' for the two most common types of stress--psychological and physical."

Surprisingly, people with mild depression are actually more tuned into the feelings of others than those who aren’t depressed, a team of Queen’s psychologists has discovered.
“This was quite unexpected because we tend to think that the opposite is true,” says lead researcher Kate Harkness. “For example, people with depression are more likely to have problems in a number of social areas.”The researchers were so taken aback by the findings, they decided to replicate the study with another group of participants. The second study produced the same results: People with mild symptoms of depression pay more attention to details of their social environment than those who are not depressed.Their report on what is known as “mental state decoding” – or identifying other people’s emotional states from social cues such as eye expressions – is published today in the international journal, Cognition and Emotion.Also on the research team from the Queen’s Psychology Department are Professors Mark Sabbagh and Jill Jacobson, and students Neeta Chowdrey and Tina Chen. Drs. Roumen Milev and Michela David at Providence Continuing Care Centre, Mental Health Services, collaborated on the study as well.

Primitive structures deep within the brain may have a far greater role in our high-level everyday thinking processes than previously believed, report researchers at the MIT Picower Center for Learning and Memory in the Feb. 24 issue of Nature.The results of this study led by Earl K. Miller, associate director of the Picower Center at MIT, have implications about how we learn. The new knowledge also may lead to better understanding and treatment for autism and schizophrenia, which could result from an imbalance between primitive and more advanced brain systems. Our brains have evolved a fast, reliable way to learn rules such as "stop at red" and "go at green." Dogma has it that the "big boss" lobes of the cerebral cortex, responsible for daily and long-term decision-making, learn the rules first and then transfer the knowledge to the more primitive, large forebrain region known as the basal ganglia, buried under the cortex.Although both regions are known to be involved in learning rules that become automatic enough for us to follow without much thought, no one had ever determined each one's specific role.In this study, Miller, who is the Picower Professor of Neuroscience, and postdoctoral associate Anitha Pasupathy found that in monkeys, the striatum (the input structure of the basal ganglia) showed more rapid change in the learning process than the more highly evolved prefrontal cortex. Their results suggest that the basal ganglia first identify the rule, and then "train" the prefrontal cortex, which absorbs the lesson more slowly. "These findings suggest new ways of thinking about learning," Miller said. "They suggest that new learning isn't simply the smarter bits of our brain such as the cortex 'figuring things out.' Instead, we should think of learning as interaction between our primitive brain structures and our more advanced cortex. In other words, primitive brain structures might be the engine driving even our most advanced high-level, intelligent learning abilities," he said.The cortex--the "thinking" part of the brain--is highly developed in humans. This is especially true for the prefrontal cortex. Common wisdom suggests that when we learn new things, the prefrontal cortex figures things out first. Then, as our behaviors become familiar and habitual, the more primitive, subcortical basal ganglia take over so that the now-familiar routines can be run off automatically and occupy less of our thoughts. "What we found was evidence for something very different," Pasupathy said. "We found that as monkeys learn new, simple rules--associations analogous to 'stop at red, go at green'--the striatum of the basal ganglia shows evidence of learning much sooner and faster than the prefrontal cortex. But, an interesting wrinkle is that the the monkeys' behavior improved at a slow rate, similar to that of the slower changes in
prefrontal cortex."

How does the cortex, the brain's executive in charge of high-level thinking and planning, go from a uniform blob of brain matter to well-defined areas with specific sensing, cognition and movement tasks?A leading neuroscientist at MIT and one from the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) report in the Nov. 4 special issue of Science dedicated to the brain that the controversy is over: The "protomap" and "protocortex" theories of brain development are dead.The cerebral cortex is a sheet of around 10 billion neurons divided into distinctly separate areas that process particular aspects of sensation, movement and cognition. To what extent are these areas predetermined by genes or shaped by the environment? The protomap and protocortex theories developed before 1990 claimed, respectively, that the task-specific regions of the cortex are spawned by a zone of "originator" cells; or that long nerve fibers from the thalamus, a large ovoid mass that relays information to the cortex from other brain regions, are activated by external stimuli to impose identity on the homogeneous blob.New evidence indicates that the development of cortical areas involves "a rich array of signals," an interwoven cascade of developmental events, some internal and some external, according to co-authors Mriganka Sur, Sherman Fairchild Professor of Neuroscience at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and John L. R. Rubenstein of UCSF. "Recent evidence has altered researchers' understanding of how cortical areas form, connect with other brain regions, develop unique processing networks and adapt to changes in inputs," Sur said. "Understanding basic mechanisms of cortical development is central to understanding disorders of development."Sur, chair of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, is leading an ambitious, multifaceted approach to understanding the genetic, molecular and behavioral aspects of autism.In the Science review article, "Patterning and Plasticity of the Cerebral Cortex," Sur and Rubenstein point out that transcription factors are key. A transcription factor is a protein that binds DNA at a specific site where it regulates transcription, or the process of copying genetic material. In the brain's early prenatal development, transcription factors control the birth and growth of new neurons, neurons' movement and connectivity within the brain, and which ones live and which are killed off.Later, at a critical point in development, activity in the form of outside stimulation refines the brain's topography and networks to create the specific functions and areas of the postnatal mammalian brain. This work is supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Marcus Fund and the Simons Foundation.

By BLOOMBERG NEWSNew tests in the first trimester¹ of pregnancy are better at identifying fetuses² with Down syndrome³  than standard tests done later in pregnancy, according to a government-financed study.

DURHAM, N.C. -- The brain is a "time machine," assert Duke neuroscientists Catalin Buhusi and Warren Meck. And understanding how the brain tracks time is essential to understanding all its functions. The brain's internal clocks coordinate a vast array of activities from communicating, to orchestrating movement, to getting food, they said. In a review article in the October 2005 Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Buhusi and Meck discuss the current state of understanding of one of the brain's most important, and mysterious, clocks -- the one governing timing intervals in the seconds to minutes range. Such interval timing occupies the middle neurological ground between two other clocks -- the circadian clock that operates over the 24-hour light-dark cycle, and the millisecond clock that is crucial for such functions as motor control and speech generation and recognition. Meck is a professor and Buhusi is an assistant research professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. Interval timing is central to broader coordination of tasks such as walking, manipulating objects, carrying on a conversation and tracking objects in the environment, they said. "Interval timing is necessary for us to understand temporal order of events, for example when carrying on a conversation," said Meck. "To understand speech, I not only have to process the millisecond intervals involved in voice onset time, but also the duration of vowels and consonants. Also, to respond, I need to process the pacing of speech, to organize my thoughts coherently and to respond back to you in a timely manner. That's all interval timing, and in fact it's hard to find any complex behavioral process that timing isn't involved in."