Chapter
Updates
- What is
Biopsychology?
- Communication
Within the Nervous System
- Functions of the
Nervous System
- Methods and Ethics of Research
- Drugs, Addiction, and Reward
- Motviation & Regulation of Internal States
- Biology of Sex and Gender
- Emotion and Health
- Hearing and Language
- Vision and Visual Perception
- Body Senses and Movement
- Learning and
Memory
- Intelligence and Cognitive Functioning
- Psychological Disorders
- Sleep and Consciousness
Biopsychology
News
Obama Lifts Stem Cell Ban
Monday, March 9. At noon President Obama signed an executive order ending the Bush administration's eight-year ban on federal funding of stem cell research. At the same time he signed a memorandum establishing greater independence for federal science policies and programs. You can read his remarks in the New York Times.
FBI Investigates Firebombing
Tuesday, March 10. The FBI is now investigating the March 7 firebombing of the car belonging to a UCLA neuroscientist who uses primates to research treatments for schizophrenia, drug addiction, and other disorders. On Monday the Animal Liberation Front posted a message on its website from an animal rights group claiming responsibility. You can read the article in the Los Angeles Times.
Rare Mutations and Schizophrenia
Geneticists have had only modest success in identifying specific genes responsible for schizophrenia, and the few they have identified account for a very small percentage of cases. Now researchers at the University of Washington have found evidence that duplications or deletions of short stretches of DNA—known as copy number variations or CNVs—play an important role. CNVs were found three times more often in schizophrenics than in controls and four times as often when the disease was diagnosed before the age of 13. Not surprisingly, the CNVs tended to cluster around genes important for brain development. Science, 320, 539-543. Just four months later two other studies have confirmed these results. In addition, the researchers were able to identify specific locations of deletions critical to schizophrenia, on chromosome 1 and chromosome 15, as well as a previously-identified locus on 22. One of the variants tripled the risk while the other two increased the risk 10-fold. Nature, 455, 232-236, and Nature, 455, 237-241.
A Robot Brain from Rat Neurons
Understanding how neurons interact with each other to produce behavior is a challenge, but neuroscientists are gaining some insights from the activity of rat neurons growing
in a culture dish. The neurons spontaneously organize into interconnected clusters and start sending neural impulses across the network. Neuroscientists are using electrodes placed in the culture to send electrical signals into the network and to measure the neurons' responses. The network receives input from a small robot's ultrasound sensor via a Bluetooth wireless device; the robot then uses the neurons' output to avoid obstacles. The behavior is admittedly low-level, but the neuroscientists hope that studying the network's activity will help them understand how neuronal interaction contributes to human behavior, and how its malfunction produces the symptoms of disorders like epilepsy and Alzheimer's. New Scientist, 16 August, 2008, 22-23*; click here for video.
The Value of Looking Frightened
Darwin suggested that the facial expression of being frightened was more than an expression—it functioned to help the frightened person cope with the threat. Finally there is evidence to support this idea. Researchers at the University of Toronto had volunteers mimic a frightened face and a "disgust" face. While posing the fear face subjects raised their brows, opened their eyes wider, and increased their horizontal eye movements; as a result, they increased their ability to detect peripheral objects. They increased their air intake, preparing them for physical exertion and, possibly, for taking in odors as well. When they mimiced disgust, they narrowed their eyes and scrunched up their nose and lips and decreased their air intake. The authors propose that a frightened expression enhances perception and disgust dampens it. Nature Neuroscience, Vol 11, 843-850.*
A New Example of Mirror Recognition
Mirror self-recognition has been observed in humans, chimpanzees, dolphins, and elephants—all mammals. Now we can add the magpie, a member of the crow family, to the list. Like chimpanzees, the birds examined paint marks on their throat in the mirror and tried to remove them with their beaks or their feet. The investigators believe this capability developed because of the importance of well-preened feathers to the birds' survival. PLoS Biology, Vol 6, e202; also see a video of a bird checking its success in the mirror.
*Online access to full journal articles may require subscription.