ScienceDaily (Dec. 7, 2011) — An attentive, nurturing mother may be able to help her children better resist the temptations of drug use later in life, according to a study in rats conducted by Duke University and the University of Adelaide in Australia.

A rat mother’s attention in early childhood actually changes the immune response in the brains of her pups by permanently altering genetic activity, according to Staci Bilbo, an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke, who led the research. High-touch mothering increased the brain’s production of an immune system molecule called Interleukin-10, leaving these rats better able to resist the temptation of a dose of morphine much later in life.

This is the first study to show how morphine causes a molecular response in the glial cells of the brain’s reward centers, which had only recently been identified as part of drug addiction’s circuitry. “We set out to find out what that response looks like,” Bilbo said.

To program some of the rat pups to produce more IL-10, the researchers used an established technique called the “handling paradigm,” in which very young rat pups are removed from their mother’s cage for 15 minutes and then returned. “As soon as they’re returned, she checks them out vigorously,” grooming the pups and cleaning them, Bilbo said. For a control group, another set of pups were never removed. Some of them had more attentive mothers than others, just by natural variation.

The animals then were put through a test called the “place preference chamber,” a two-roomed cage in which they would be given a dose of morphine if they entered one side, or a dose of saline on the other. Over the next four weeks, the rats were returned to the two-sided chamber three times a week for five minutes, but were never given another dose of morphine. Initially, they all showed a preference for the morphine side, but over time, the handled rats showed little preference, which indicated their craving had been “extinguished,” Bilbo said.

About 8 weeks after their first exposure to morphine, the animals were each given a very small dose of morphine to prime craving and then returned to the 2-sided chamber. The non-handled control rats preferred spending time in the morphine chamber; the handled rats still showed no clear preference.

Morphine activates the glial cells of the brain to produce inflammatory molecules which signal a reward center of the brain called the nucleus accumbens. But IL-10 works against that inflammation and reward. The more IL-10 the brain produces, the less likely morphine would cause an increase in craving or relapse weeks after the initial experience with the drug.

The brains of the rat pups who experienced high-touch mothering were found to have more active genes for producing IL-10 in the microglial cells of the brain, which apparently “completely knocked out this drug-seeking behavior,” Bilbo said. They were producing about four times as much IL-10 as the control animals. “The nurturing moms can profoundly change outcomes,” Bilbo said.

This is a change not of the genes themselves, but of the way they are controlled by something called methylation, which can keep a gene’s activity suppressed. High-touch mothering removed methylation on the IL-10 gene, making these rats produce more of the anti-inflammatory molecule.

To further prove that IL-10 levels were key to the craving, the researchers used a drug called ibudilast to artificially increase IL-10 production in a group of control rats. These rats experience craving extinction much the same as the high-touch rats.

“Two exciting things have been uncovered by this groundbreaking research,” said coauthor Mark Hutchinson, a research fellow at the University of Adelaide. “One, we have proven a mother’s touch changes brain function and two, we have demonstrated an exciting way to intervene in the cycle of drug abuse.”

It’s important to note that the genetic modification created by the mothering didn’t change the initial rewarding effect of the morphine, it altered the craving for that reward much later, Bilbo said.

Bilbo said her team next wants to look at the long-term effects of maternal stress on the brain’s immune response. They’ll be working with the Children’s Environmental Health Initiative at Duke, which examines real-world environmental health effects in Durham, NC in collaboration with the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Dreaming Takes the Sting out of Painful

Memories, Research Shows

ScienceDaily (Nov. 23, 2011) — They say time heals all wounds, and new research from the University of California, Berkeley, indicates that time spent in dream sleep can help us overcome painful ordeals.

UC Berkeley researchers have found that during the dream phase of sleep, also known as REM sleep, our stress chemistry shuts down and the brain processes emotional experiences and takes the edge off difficult memories.

The findings offer a compelling explanation for why people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), such as war veterans, have a hard time recovering from distressing experiences and suffer reoccurring nightmares. They also offer clues into why we dream.

“The dream stage of sleep, based on its unique neurochemical composition, provides us with a form of overnight therapy, a soothing balm that removes the sharp edges from the prior day’s emotional experiences,” said Matthew Walker, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at UC Berkeley and senior author of the study to be published on Nov. 23, in the journal Current Biology.

For people with PTSD, Walker said, this overnight therapy may not be working effectively, so when a “flashback is triggered by, say, a car backfiring, they relive the whole visceral experience once again because the emotion has not been properly stripped away from the memory during sleep.”

The results offer some of the first insights into the emotional function of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, which typically takes up 20 percent of a healthy human’s sleeping hours. Previous brain studies indicate that sleep patterns are disrupted in people with mood disorders such as PTSD and depression.

While humans spend one-third of their lives sleeping, there is no scientific consensus on the function of sleep. However, Walker and his research team have unlocked many of these mysteries linking sleep to learning, memory and mood regulation. The latest study shows the importance of the REM dream state.

“During REM sleep, memories are being reactivated, put in perspective and connected and integrated, but in a state where stress neurochemicals are beneficially suppressed,” said Els van der Helm, a doctoral student in psychology at UC Berkeley and lead author of the study.

Thirty-five healthy young adults participated in the study. They were divided into two groups, each of whose members viewed 150 emotional images, twice and 12 hours apart, while an MRI scanner measured their brain activity.

Half of the participants viewed the images in the morning and again in the evening, staying awake between the two viewings. The remaining half viewed the images in the evening and again the next morning after a full night of sleep.

Those who slept in between image viewings reported a significant decrease in their emotional reaction to the images. In addition, MRI scans showed a dramatic reduction in reactivity in the amygdala, a part of the brain that processes emotions, allowing the brain’s “rational” prefrontal cortex to regain control of the participants’ emotional reactions.

In addition, the researchers recorded the electrical brain activity of the participants while they slept, using electroencephalograms. They found that during REM dream sleep, certain electrical activity patterns decreased, showing that reduced levels of stress neurochemicals in the brain soothed emotional reactions to the previous day’s experiences.

“We know that during REM sleep there is a sharp decrease in levels of norepinephrine, a brain chemical associated with stress,” Walker said. “By reprocessing previous emotional experiences in this neuro-chemically safe environment of low norepinephrine during REM sleep, we wake up the next day, and those experiences have been softened in their emotional strength. We feel better about them, we feel we can cope.”

Walker said he was tipped off to the possible beneficial effects of REM sleep on PTSD patients when a physician at a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in the Seattle area told him of a blood pressure drug that was inadvertently preventing reoccurring nightmares in PTSD patients.

It turns out that the generic blood pressure drug had a side effect of suppressing norepinephrine in the brain, thereby creating a more stress-free brain during REM, reducing nightmares and promoting a better quality of sleep. This suggested a link between PTSD and REM sleep, Walker said.

“This study can help explain the mysteries of why these medications help some PTSD patients and their symptoms as well as their sleep,” Walker said. “It may also unlock new treatment avenues regarding sleep and mental illness.”

Other co-authors of the study are UC Berkeley sleep researchers Justin Yao, Shubir Dutt, Vikram Rao and Jared Saletin.

The Neurobiology of Trust

ScienceDaily (Aug. 19, 2011) — Few topics in the neurosciences have generated as much excitement in recent years as research on oxytocin. This neurohormone has been known for its significance for childbirth and breastfeeding for well over half a century. In the past two decades, studies conducted on animals have indicated that it also plays a crucial role in social bonding behavior and in the reduction of stress and anxiety in social situations.

So far, mental disorders involving social deficits have been particularly difficult or impossible to treat through traditional therapeutic means. Only half of social phobia patients can currently be treated successfully with therapy, and no effective therapy has yet been developed for healing patients with autism.

In the current issue of Nature Reviews Neuroscience, a team of neuroscientists including Markus Heinrichs and Dr. Gregor Domes from the University of Freiburg and Prof. Dr. Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg and Prof. Dr. Peter Kirsch from Heidelberg’s Central Institute for Mental Health introduce a new model addressing the relevance of neurohormones for the “social brain.” By integrating methods from the behavioral sciences as well as from hormone, genetic, and brain research, the scientists succeed in detailing new clinical perspectives for treating mental disorders involving social deficits.

“The ‘psychobiological therapy’ we describe does not involve the development of a new medication, but rather a ‘propsychotherapeutic’ stimulation of a neurohormone system — meaning a combination of hormones and interactional psychotherapy,” explains Markus Heinrichs. Since transferring from the University of Zurich to the University of Freiburg in late 2009, Heinrichs has headed the Outpatient Psychotherapy Clinic for Stress-Related Disorders and has also conducted clinical studies in cooperation with the Department of Psychiatry at the Freiburg University Medical Center.

Brain Chemical May Explain Why Heavy Smokers Feel Sad After Quitting

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110802113318.htm

ScienceDaily (Aug. 2, 2011) — Heavy smokers may experience sadness after quitting because early withdrawal leads to an increase in the mood-related brain protein monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A), a new study by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) has shown. This finding, which was published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, may also explain why heavy smokers are at high risk for clinical depression.

Using an advanced brain imaging method, a team led by Senior Scientist Dr. Jeffrey Meyer discovered that MAO-A levels in the brain regions that control mood rose by 25 per cent eight hours after withdrawal from heavy cigarette smoking. These levels were much higher than in a comparison group of non-smoking study participants. All 48 participants filled out questionnaires, and smokers with high brain MAO-A levels during withdrawal also reported greater feelings of sadness.

“Understanding sadness during cigarette withdrawal is important because this sad mood makes it hard for people to quit, especially in the first few days. Also, heavy cigarette smoking is strongly associated with clinical depression,” said Dr. Meyer, who holds a Canada Research Chair in the Neurochemistry of Major Depression. “This is the first time MAO-A, a brain protein known to be elevated in clinical depression has been studied during cigarette withdrawal.”

MAO-A “eats up” chemicals in the brain, such as serotonin, that help maintain a normal mood. When MAO-A levels are higher as in early cigarette withdrawal, it means that this removal process is overly active, making people feel sad. For this study, MAO-A was detected using a brain imaging technique called positron emission tomography (PET). CAMH has the only PET scanner in the world dedicated solely to mental health and addiction research.

A specific substance in cigarette smoke, called harman, may be responsible for these changes, the researchers note. During active smoking, harman attaches to MAO-A. During early withdrawal in heavy smokers who had 25 or more cigarettes a day, MAO-A levels rose rapidly to a level beyond that seen in the healthy comparison group.

“This study opens new ways to prevent sad mood during cigarette withdrawal to make it easier to quit smoking. For example, it may be possible to improve the existing cigarette filters that partially screen out harman, or regulate the amount of tryptophan contained in cigarettes, since tryptophan becomes harman when it burns,” said Dr. Meyer, who is also head of the Neurochemical Imaging Program in Mood Disorders at CAMH’s Research Imaging Centre, and professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto. “We also identified MAO-A as a target to shut down during the early critical stage of withdrawal with a short course of medication, but this requires further study.”

“This finding may explain why heavy smokers are at high risk for clinical depression,” says Dr. Anthony Phillips, Scientific Director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s (CIHR’s) Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction, which funded this study.

The study was also supported by the Ontario Mental Health Foundation, the U.S.-based Brain and Behavior Fund (formerly NARSAD), and the Canada Foundation for Innovation.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110516162219.htm

ScienceDaily (May 16, 2011) — It seems like everyone wants to be happier and the pursuit of happiness is one of the foundations of American life. But even happiness can have a dark side, according to the authors of a new review article published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. They say that happiness shouldn’t be thought of as a universally good thing, and outline four ways in which this is the case. Indeed, not all types and degrees of happiness are equally good, and even pursuing happiness can make people feel bad.

People who want to feel happier can choose from a multitude of books that tell them how to do it. But setting a goal of happiness can backfire, says June Gruber of Yale University, who co- wrote the article with Iris Mauss of the University of Denver and Maya Tamir of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It’s one of the many downsides of happiness — people who strive for happiness may end up worse off than when they started.

The tools often suggested for making yourself happy aren’t necessarily bad — like taking time every day to think about things you’re happy about or grateful for, or setting up situations that are likely to make you happy. “But when you’re doing it with the motivation or expectation that these things ought to make you happy, that can lead to disappointment and decreased happiness,” Gruber says. For example, one study by Mauss and colleagues found that people who read a newspaper article extolling the value of happiness felt worse after watching a happy film than people who read a newspaper article that didn’t mention happiness — presumably because they were disappointed they didn’t feel happier. When people don’t end up as happy as they’d expected, their feeling of failure can make them feel even worse.

Too much happiness can also be a problem. One study followed children from the 1920s to old age and found that those who died younger were rated as highly cheerful by their teachers. Researchers have found that people who are feeling extreme amounts of happiness may not think as creatively and also tend to take more risks. For example, people who have mania, such as in bipolar disorder, have an excess degree of positive emotions that can lead them to take risks, like substance abuse, driving too fast, or spending their life savings. But even for people who don’t have a psychiatric disorder, “too high of a degree of happiness can be bad,” Gruber says.

Another problem is feeling happiness inappropriately; obviously, it’s not healthy to feel happy when you see someone crying over the loss of a loved one or when you hear a friend was injured in a car crash. Yet research by Gruber and her colleagues has found this inappropriate happiness also occurs in people with mania. Happiness also can mean being short on negative emotions — which have their place in life as well. Fear can keep you from taking unnecessary risks; guilt can help remind you to behave well toward others.

Indeed, psychological scientists have discovered what appears to really increase happiness. “The strongest predictor of happiness is not money, or external recognition through success or fame,” Gruber says. “It’s having meaningful social relationships.” That means the best way to increase your happiness is to stop worrying about being happy and instead divert your energy to nurturing the social bonds you have with other people. “If there’s one thing you’re going to focus on, focus on that. Let all the rest come as it will.”

The article is entitled “A Dark Side of Happiness? How, When, and Why Happiness Is Not Always Good.”
The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Association for Psychological Science

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101220200010.htm

ScienceDaily (Dec. 22, 2010) — A new treatment program teaches people who suffer from panic disorder how to reduce the terrorizing symptoms by normalizing their breathing.

The biological-behavioral treatment program is called Capnometry-Assisted Respiratory Training, or CART, said psychologist and panic disorder expert Alicia E. Meuret at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

CART helps patients learn to breathe in such a way as to reverse hyperventilation, a highly uncomfortable state where the blood stream operates with abnormally low levels of carbon dioxide, said Meuret, one of the researchers conducting the study.

Hyperventilation, a state of excessive breathing, results from deep or rapid breathing and is common in patients with panic disorders.

“We found that with CART it’s the therapeutic change in carbon dioxide that changes the panic symptoms — and not vice versa,” Meuret said.

CART: Breathing exercises twice a day

During the treatment, patients undergo simple breathing exercises twice a day. A portable capnometer device supplies feedback during the exercises on a patient’s CO2 levels. The goal of these exercises is to reduce chronic and acute hyperventilation and associated physical symptoms. This is achieved by breathing slower but most importantly more shallowly. Contrary to lay belief, taking deep breaths actually worsens hyperventilation and symptoms.

“Most panic-disorder patients report they are terrified of physical symptoms such as shortness of breath or dizziness,” Meuret said. “In our study, cognitive therapy didn’t change respiratory physiology, but CART did effectively reduce hyperventilation. CART was proved an effective and powerful treatment that reduces the panic by means of normalizing respiratory physiology.”

The findings, “Respiratory and cognitive mediators of treatment change in panic disorder: Evidence for intervention specificity,” appeared in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. Meuret, who developed CART, is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at SMU and co-directs the department’s Stress, Anxiety and Chronic Disease Research Program. The Beth & Russell Siegelman Foundation funded the research.

CART breathing a proven biological therapy

The study pitted CART against a conventional cognitive therapy treatment, or CT. Traditional CT teaches patients techniques aimed at helping them change and reverse catastrophic thoughts in order to reduce fear and panic.

In the CART-CT study, 41 patients were assigned to complete either a CART or CT treatment program for panic disorder and agoraphobia, a fear of being trapped with no means of escape or help.

Both treatment programs were equally effective in reducing symptoms, said Meuret. But CART was the only treatment to physiologically alter panic symptoms by actively reversing hyperventilation in the patients. Cognitive therapy didn’t change the respiratory physiology, said Meuret.

Treatment helps patients address terror associated with panic

The study is the second randomized control trial to measure CART’s effectiveness. By reversing hyperventilation, patients reported a new ability to reduce panic symptoms by means of changing their respiration.

With CT, Meuret said, if a patient reports shortness of breath, the therapist challenges the assumption by asking how often the person actually has suffocated during a panic attack, then hopes that will reverse the patient’s thinking.

“I found that process very challenging for some of my patients because it acknowledges the symptom but says it’s not a problem,” Meuret said.

“CART, however, tells us a patient’s CO2 is very low and is causing many of the symptoms feared, but it can also show how to change these symptoms through correct breathing. There has been an assumption that if people worry less about symptoms it will also normalize their physiology, but this study shows that this is not the case,” she said. “Hyperventilation remains unchanged, which could be a risk factor for relapse down the road. Apart from hyperventilation being a symptom generator, it is an unhealthy biological state associated with negative health outcomes.”

Broader study planned to measure CART

The researchers plan to branch out with their studies on CART by taking the program into the community, particularly to ethnic minorities. They believe CART is a more universally understood treatment due to its physical exercises — as opposed to cognitive therapy’s more intellectual methods — and therefore more accessible to a broader range of people with varying levels of education and different cultural backgrounds. Ongoing studies will test the efficacy of CART in patients with asthma and fear of blood.

Co-authors of the study at SMU were David Rosenfield, associate psychology professor, and psychology graduate students Anke Seidel and Lavanya Bhaskara. Stefan G. Hofmann, psychology professor at Boston University, was also an author on the paper.

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.

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Southern Methodist University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

ALSO RELATED

Hyperventilation

8 Tactics to Overcome It

The first time it happened, Gary Varner thought he was having a heart attack. “My heart was racing and it just felt like everything inside my body—my chest—was vibrating. And I felt some tingling.”

Understandably, he was scared. But at a hospital, emergency room doctors said his heart was fine. Their diagnosis: hyperventilation.

Simply put, hyperventilation is “breathing fast,” or overbreathing, says Stephen J. Harrison, M.D., senior emergency medical resident at the Medical Center of Delaware in Wilmington.

“Anxiety is a common cause,” says Gabe Mirkin, M.D., a sports medicine expert from Silver Spring, Maryland, and an associate clinical professor at Georgetown University School of Medicine. “When some people are frightened, they breathe rapidly and deeply, even though they don’t need the extra oxygen. This causes them to breathe out a large amount of carbon dioxide, and excessive loss of carbon dioxide causes the blood to become alkaline. This in turn causes the symptoms

of a panic attack.”

Episodes of hyperventilation can last for hours but typically just 20 to 30 minutes. But to the heavy-breathing sufferer it can seem like hours.

Of course Varner was relieved to learn he had not suffered a heart attack. But his experience with hyperventilation was just beginning—repeat attacks are not uncommon. But Varner learned there are things you can do to stop attacks and to prevent them.

MEDICAL ALERT Let Your Doctor Diagnose One moment you’re breathing normally—then suddenly you are breathing fast—out of control—your heart is pounding, your fingers are tingling, and your palms are sweating. You feel as if you’re going to die, but in all probability you’ll live to pay next year’s taxes. Hyperventilation, in most cases, is caused by anxiety. But if you’ve never experienced hyperventilation before, “you probably should be seen by a doctor,” says Stephen J. Harrison, M.D. Though it is uncommon, hyperventilation could be connected to a lung disease, a blood infection, pneumonia—even poisoning. Also, it’s possible that what feels like a heart attack is a heart attack. Of course, it’s probably nothing that serious—but leave the official diagnosis to a doctor.

Breathe into a paper bag. This has long been the primary treatment for hyperventilation. The theory is that rebreathing into a paper bag will allow the person to replace the carbon dioxide “blown off” while hyperventilating.

“Blowing into a paper bag is fine,” Dr. Harrison says, “if you’ve hyperventilated before, been evaluated by a doctor, and are sure there is nothing seriously wrong.” Most people who hyperventilate meet that criteria, but a few may have more severe problems. (See “Let Your Doctor Diagnose” on the opposite page.)

Varner says using a paper bag not only helped him halt attacks, but it may have prevented some, too. “When I was battling this problem daily, I would carry a paper bag with me all the time,” he says. “And just knowing I had that sack with me was a big help.”

Sit down, be calm, and relax. You need to slow your breathing, says Dr. Mirkin. The more tense you are, the faster you’ll breathe.

Practice breathing naturally. Don’t take exaggerated breaths and don’t take very shallow breaths—take normal breaths. That’s one breath every 6 seconds or ten breaths a minute. Do this twice a day, 10 minutes per session, Dr. Mirkin advises.

Think beyond yourself. “Once I had that first hyperventilation experience, I became consumed with thoughts of having another one. And I did have several more,” Varner says. So while you want to focus on your breathing in the practice sessions, Dr. Mirkin suggests you don’t want to spend all your time thinking about your breathing and the possibility of hyperventilating.

“After all,” says Dr. Harrison, “breathing is a natural thing.”

Exercise. “It decreases anxiety and helps people cope better,” Dr. Harrison says. “Especially if you get your heart rate up.” And when exercising, breathing a little faster is fine.

Avoid uncomfortable situations. For Varner, that means not trapping himself in a crowd where he has to sit or stand still for long periods of time. Identify situations in your life that trigger hyperventilation and eliminate or reduce them. “If your fear of black cats, for example, makes you hyperventilate, then steer clear of black cats,” says Dr. Mirkin.

Cut caffeine. It’s a stimulant, and therefore, a potential trigger for hyperventilation, says Dr. Harrison. Watch out for coffee, tea, colas, and chocolate.

Don’t smoke. Nicotine is also a stimulant.

PANEL OF ADVISERS

---

Stephen J. Harrison, M.D., is senior emergency medical resident at the Medical Center of Delaware in Wilmington.

Gabe Mirkin, M.D., is in private practice at the Sportsmedicine Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland. He is also associate clinical professor of pediatrics at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C. He is the author of several sports medicine books, including Dr. Gabe Mirkin’s Fitness Clinic, and is a syndicated newspaper columnist and radio broadcaster.

How the First Nine Months Shape the Rest of Your Life
By Annie Murphy Paul Wednesday, Sep. 22, 2010

Pregnant Woman

What makes us the way we are? Why are some people predisposed to be anxious, overweight or asthmatic? How is it that some of us are prone to heart attacks, diabetes or high blood pressure?

There’s a list of conventional answers to these questions. We are the way we are because it’s in our genes. We turn out the way we do because of our childhood experiences. Or our health and well-being stem from the lifestyle choices we make as adults.

But there’s another powerful source of influence you may not have considered: your life as a fetus. The nutrition you received in the womb; the pollutants, drugs and infections you were exposed to during gestation; your mother’s health and state of mind while she was pregnant with you — all these factors shaped you as a baby and continue to affect you to this day. (See TIME’s special report on women and health.)

This is the provocative contention of a field known as fetal origins, whose pioneers assert that the nine months of gestation constitute the most consequential period of our lives, permanently influencing the wiring of the brain and the functioning of organs such as the heart, liver and pancreas. In the literature on the subject, which has exploded over the past 10 years, you can find references to the fetal origins of cancer, cardiovascular disease, allergies, asthma, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, mental illness. At the farthest edge of fetal-origins research, scientists are exploring the possibility that intrauterine conditions influence not only our physical health but also our intelligence, temperament, even our sanity.

As a journalist who covers science, I was intrigued when I first heard about fetal origins. But two years ago, when I began to delve more deeply into the field, I had a more personal motivation: I was newly pregnant. If it was true that my actions over the next nine months would affect my offspring for the rest of his life, I needed to know more. (See iPhone apps for new moms.)

Of course, no woman who is pregnant today can escape hearing the message that what she does affects her fetus. She hears it at doctor’s appointments, sees it in the pregnancy guidebooks: Do eat this, don’t drink that, be vigilant but never stressed. Expectant mothers could be forgiven for feeling that pregnancy is just a nine-month slog, full of guilt and devoid of pleasure, and this research threatened to add to the burden. (See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2009.)

But the scientists I met weren’t full of dire warnings but of the excitement of discovery — and the hope that their discoveries would make a positive difference. Research on fetal origins is prompting a revolutionary shift in thinking about where human qualities come from and when they begin to develop. It’s turning pregnancy into a scientific frontier: the National Institutes of Health embarked last year on a multidecade study that will examine its subjects before they’re born. And it makes the womb a promising target for prevention, raising hopes of conquering public-health scourges like obesity and heart disease through interventions before birth.

Adapted from Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives, by Annie Murphy Paul, published in September by Free Press.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2020815,00.html#ixzz11Wu4vLnm

Why Does Everything Look Gray When You Feel Blue?

ScienceDaily (July 21, 2010) — Regardless of culture, language, era, or individual artist, the arts consistently depict depression using darkness.

Scientific findings now lend empirical support to this representation of depression that everything looks gray when you feel blue.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100720083258.htm

November 11 – 17

Treating Depression With Omega-3: Encouraging Results from Largest Clinical Study

ScienceDaily (June 21, 2010) — The use of Omega-3 supplements is effective among patients with major depression who do not have anxiety disorders, according to a study directed by Dr. François Lespérance of the Centre de recherche du Centre hospitalier at the Université de Montréal (CRCHUM), head of CHUM’s Department of Psychiatry and a professor at the Université de Montréal.

The study was published June 15 in the online Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

This was the largest study ever conducted assessing Omega-3’s efficacy in treating major depression. It was carried out in conjunction with researchers from centres affiliated with the UdM’s Réseau universitaire intégré de santé (RUIS), from McGill University, Université Laval in Quebec City and Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. The study was supported by the European firm isodisnatura, the Fondation du CHUM and the CRCHUM.

Initial analyses failed to clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of Omega-3 for all patients taking part in the study. Other analyses, however, revealed that Omega-3 improved depression symptoms in patients diagnosed with depression unaccompanied by an anxiety disorder. Efficacy for these patients was comparable to that generally observed with conventional antidepressant treatment.

From October 2005 to January 2009, 432 male and female participants with major unipolar depression were recruited to take part in this randomized, double-blind study (neither patients nor researchers knew which capsules patients received). For eight weeks, half of the participants took three capsules per day of OM3 Emotional Balance, a fish oil supplement containing high concentrations of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). The other half took three identical capsules of a placebo consisting of sunflower oil, flavoured with a small quantity of fish oil. In contrast with typical clinical studies designed to assess the effectiveness of antidepressants, this study included a high proportion of patients with complex and difficult-to-treat conditions, including patients resistant to conventional antidepressant treatments and patients also suffering from an anxiety disorder. The aim was to assess the value of Omega-3 supplementation in a group of individuals more like those treated in outpatient clinics.

Need to assess the impact of Omega-3 supplements

Some 11% of men and 16% of women in Canada will suffer from major depression at some point in their lives, making this disorder one of our society’s leading public health issues. Depression, which is now the world’s fourth leading cause of morbidity and death is expected to move up to the number two position by 2020. “Despite significant progress in neuroscience over the past two decades, depression is difficult to treat,” Dr. Lespérance noted. In view of the large number of patients who stop taking their medications in the first few months of treatment and those who refuse such treatment due to fear of stigmatization or side effects, it comes as no surprise that a large number of patients suffering from major depression use alternative treatments offered outside the healthcare system. “Many of these treatments have not been adequately evaluated. That is why it was important to assess the efficacy of Omega-3, one of the most popular alternative approaches,” he added.

Epidemiological and neurobiological studies have suggested that a relative deficit in polyunsaturated fatty acids of the Omega-3 group may predispose individuals to psychological disorders such as depression. Further, several preliminary clinical studies based on small numbers of patients have suggested that Omega-3 supplements with high concentrations of EPA can help to reduce symptoms of depression among patients who fail to respond to an initial antidepressant treatment. These studies have not, however, convinced the entire scientific community. A broader study was needed to acquire further knowledge about the properties and efficacy of high-quality Omega-3 supplements among patients suffering from major depression.

“We are proud that OM3 Emotional Balance, with its high concentration of EPA at unexcelled levels of purity delivers the dose of EPA needed for effective treatment,” said Claire Bertin, head pharmacist for isodisnatura, the laboratory producing the Omega-3 supplement used in the study.

It is important to note that the study assessed use of Omega-3 for eight weeks, at doses of 1050 mg of EPA and 150 mg of DHA each day. It is currently unknown whether taking higher doses or taking supplements over a longer period would yield different results.

These encouraging results show that use of EPA is effective among patients with unipolar depression unaccompanied by an anxiety disorder. Additional research directly comparing Omega-3 with conventional antidepressants could more clearly confirm their usefulness for patients suffering from depression.