FW: Reelin, Virus and Schizophrenia/ Autism is Mom's Fault?/ Brain Art

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Reelin, Virus and Schizophrenia/ Autism is Mom's Fault?/ Brain

Art

FEAT DAILY NEWSLETTER Sacramento, California http://www.feat.org

" Healing Autism: No Finer a Cause on the Planet "

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Also: * Study Tries to Prove Autism is Mom’s Fault

* Measles Virus In Inflammatory Bowel Disease & Autism Cases

* Brain Chemical Plays Multiple Roles

* Genes That May Predict Alcoholism, Depression

* Looking Within: The Brain As Art

Reelin, Virus and Schizophrenia

Defective corticogenesis and reduction in Reelin immunoreactivity in cortex

and hippocampus of prenatally infected neonatal mice.

Mol Psychiatry 1999 Mar;4(2):145-54

Fatemi SH, Emamian ES, Kist D, Sidwell RW, Nakajima K, Akhter P, Shier

A, Sheikh S, K

Department of Psychiatry, University of Minnesota Medical School,

Minneapolis 55455, USA. fatem002@...

Recent reports indicate an association between second trimester human

influenza viral infection and later development of schizophrenia. Postmortem

human brain studies also provide evidence for reduction in Reelin mRNA (an

important secretory protein responsible for normal lamination of the brain)

in schizophrenic brains.

We hypothesized that human influenza infection in day 9 pregnant mice

would alter the expression of reelin in day 0 neonatal brains.

Prenatally-infected murine brains from postnatal day 0 showed significant

reductions in reelin-positive cell counts in layer I of neocortex and other

cortical and hippocampal layers when compared to controls.

Whereas layer I Cajal-Retzius cells produced significantly less Reelin

in infected animals, the same cells showed normal production of calretinin

and nNOS when compared to control brains. Moreover, prenatal viral infection

caused decreases in neocortical and hippocampal thickness. These results

implicate a potential role of prenatal viral infection in causation of

neuronal migration abnormalities via reduction in Reelin production in

neonatal brains.

PMID: 10208446, UI: 99223145

* * *

Study Tries to Prove Autism is Mom’s Fault

[bruno Bettelheim refuses to die.]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve & db=PubMed & list_ui

ds=11285082 & dopt=Abstract

Early intervention for infants with autistic spectrum disorders in Japan.

1: Pediatr Int 2001 Apr;43(2):202-8 Kobayashi R, Takenoshita Y, Kobayashi H,

Kamijo A, Funaba K, Takarabe M. Department of Social Work, Tokai University

School of Health Sciences; Department of Psychiatry, Saint nna Medical

School; Tokai University Graduate School of Health Sciences, Kanagawa and;

Faculty of Education, Ryukyu University, Okinawa, Japan.

Background: To date, many researchers in Japan have assumed that the

cause of autistic spectrum disorders is attributable to some disorder in the

ability of the child. However, we have been working on the premise that

autistic spectrum disorders are brought about by relationship disturbances

in early infancy and have been attempting to validate this hypothesis

through early intervention.

Methods: We have examined the developmental process of affective

communication in infants with autistic spectrum disorders. We have

postulated that approach-avoidance motivational conflict (Richer) is the

primary factor impeding the development of affective communication and have

focused therapeutic intervention on this perspective.

Results: As a result, attachment behavior was markedly improved in

children, but affective communication with their mothers was not. Examining

the mothers' images of themselves in infancy in mother-infant psychotherapy,

problems that the mothers had themselves in infancy with attachment behavior

to t heir own mothers affected the mothers' internal representation of their

children, leading to active evolution of mother-child interaction and

development of affective communication between the mother and child.

Conclusion: In this context, the basis and significance of the

internal representation of both parties being determinants in the quality of

mother-child communication are discussed. Our goal in early intervention is

not the elevation of a child's linguistic-cognitive abilities, but the

creation of a comforting relationship in which both parent and child can

live securely, without strain.

PMID: 11285082 [PubMed - in process]

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* * *

Measles Virus In Inflammatory Bowel Disease And Autism Cases

Measles virus persistence in specimens of Inflammatory bowel disease and

autism cases

[This is all the information provided at the website address below.

If any reader has this article, please contact me: Schafer@...]

http://www.wkap.nl/oasis.htm/301652

Digestive Diseases and Sciences

46 (3):658-660, March 2001.

© Plenum Publishing Corporation

M. A. Afzal

Division of Virology National Institute for Biological Standards and

Control South Mimms, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, EN6 3QG, UK

P. D. Minor

Division of Virology National Institute for Biological Standards and

Control South Mimms, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, EN6 3QG, UK

S. Ghosh

Gastrointestinal Unit, Department of Medicine University of Edinburgh,

Western General Hospital Edinburgh, UK

Li Jin

Enteric and Respiratory Laboratory Central Public Health Laboratory

Colindale, London NW9 5HT, UK\

ISSN 0163-2116

* * *

Brain Chemical Plays Multiple Roles

Substance may shed light on Parkinson’s, drug addiction

http://www.newshub.com/cgibin/rd.cgi?10801949

A substance produced by the brain to help cells grow also helps a key

chemical messenger do its job, a finding that could shed new light on

Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia and drug addiction, researchers say.

‘We don’t understand enough yet. But the important thing here is that

the link has been established between BDNF and dopamine, and that’s an

honest day’s work.’ — IRA B. BLACK Wood Medical School

The Substance, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, has long been known

to help brain cells mature and survive. The researchers found that BDNF also

helps the messenger dopamine by providing a pathway used to deliver the

message.

The findings are reported in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature

by Pierre Sokoloff of INSERM, the French equivalent of the National

Institutes of Health, and colleagues in Paris and Marseille, France.

Working in mice, the scientists found that BDNF prompts brain cells

to produce so-called D3 receptors, one type of the tiny structures to which

dopamine binds to deliver its message. So, BDNF may play some role in

several conditions involving the dopamine signaling system, such as

Parkinson’s disease and drug addiction, researchers said.

Brain autopsies of schizophrenia patients have also found higher than

normal levels of BDNF, Sokoloff said.

The researchers found that mice lacking BDNF had unusually few D3

receptors. They also found that when they reduced the population of D3

receptors in one part of the brain by chemical injection, they could largely

restore the population by injecting BDNF.

Role In Addiction

In a commentary accompanying the paper, Francis J. White of the

Chicago Medical School said substances that bind D3 receptors are effective

at treating Parkinson’s and reducing cocaine-seeking behavior in animal

versions of cocaine addiction. As a result, BDNF may be involved in the

effects of the Parkinson’s medicine levodopa and in drug addiction, he said.

Ira B. Black, chairman of the department of neuroscience and cell

biology at Wood Medical School in Piscataway, N.J., said new

treatments based on the research may be a way off.

“We don’t understand enough yet,” Black said. “But the important

thing here is that the link has been established between BDNF and dopamine,

and that’s an honest day’s work.” © 2001 Associated Press. All rights

reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or

redistributed.

* * *

Genes That May Predict Alcoholism, Depression

http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/apa-nsl043001.html

Washington, D.C. - It has long been known that a direct link exists

between alcohol and depression. Now data shows that a gene or genes on

chromosome 1 may predispose some individuals to alcoholism and others to

depression, according to a groundbreaking study in the May 2001 American

Journal of Psychiatry, a monthly journal of the American Psychiatric

Association.

Researchers identified an area on chromosome 1 that is linked with

vulnerability to alcoholism as well as affective disorders, primarily

depression. Depending on circumstances, the gene or genes may manifest

differently, in either of these forms. The study also showed that in many

cases, the incidence of depression in individuals was secondary to

alcoholism.

The research was conducted as part of the Collaborative Study of the

Genetics of Alcoholism, an ongoing study at nine research centers across the

United States in which investigators have used a common protocol to gather

clinical and biological data from several hundred families with more than

one case of alcoholism.

" With this new data we can now take a better look at patterns of

diagnoses such as alcoholism and depression that run in families, " said

I. Nurnberger, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Institute of Psychiatric

Research, Indiana University Medical Center and lead author of the study.

" In the future, we may be able to predict whether an individual is likely to

have these disorders. "

Preliminary results in a separate series of families indicate similar

findings. Pinpointing the specific genes involved will be an integral part

of subsequent studies, Nurnberger said.

The likelihood of overlap in genetic factors between alcoholism and

affective disorders points up the need for further study of both

populations, and it reinforces the importance of studying the interaction

between the two conditions, Nurnberger said.

[Evidence for a Locus on Chromosome 1 that Influences Vulnerability to

Alcoholism and Affective Disorder, " by I. Nurnberger, Jr., M.D., Ph.D.,

et al., p. 718, American Journal of Psychiatry, May 2001.]

* * *

Looking Within: The Brain As Art

A retrospective exhibit explores the evolving visualization of the brain.

[The material presented in the following article contains elements of

art, medicine and history and may not be appropriate subject matter for the

pedestrian reader as it may induce sleepiness; in which case, do not read

before driving or operating heavy equipment. By Stapleton,

AMNews.]

In 1991, the Institute of Medicine report, " Mapping the Brain and Its

Functions: Integrating Enabling Technologies into Neuroscience Research, "

declared that " neuroscience is an inherently visual science.”

This theme is demonstrated by a current National Academy of Sciences'

exhibit tracking 500 years of work illustrating the evolution of knowledge

about the brain's form and function. With more than 60 images, The Art of

Neuroscience: Image and Understanding 1518-2000, explores how this

discipline is marked by an intersection of advances in artistic technique

and scientific technology -- from 16th century woodcuts to advanced PET

scans.

" The idea of the exhibition is that the visual form is at least as

powerful a way to communicate scientific knowledge as are words, " said Janis

Tomlinson, PhD, curator and director of the Arts in the Academy program at

the NAS.

" But going back in [time], each attempt to illustrate anatomy, the

brain, creates a footprint forward, " said Dr. Tomlinson. " When you try to

record something in an image, it forces you to look harder to define what

isn't that definite. The act of imaging forces you to see more.”

The juxtapositions are striking.

One illustration, a 1627 woodcut from the anatomical text, On the

Structure of the Human Body, is hung near a 1994 Annie Leibowitz photograph,

" Portrait of Laurie , MRI.”

Together, these examples are interesting for a couple of reasons,

according to Dr. Tomlinson. The early images are depersonalized. In

contrast, Leibowitz' 20th-century photo shows a series of MRI images of one

person, so specialized that it creates an unusual portrait, " a unique

identifier of an individual, " Dr. Tomlinson said.

Tracing neuroscience's images over time is a fascinating path that

conveys how medical knowledge was both advanced and hamstrung by limits in

technology.

" A woodcut -- even in the hands of the famous anatomist Vesalius --

could not show the detail that would be revealed subsequently in engravings

and until the 18th century, illustrations were printed only in black and

white, " notes the exhibit's catalog.

Consider, for instance, Estienne's De Dissectione Partium

Corporis Humani from 1545. In a woodcut from this work, a muscular figure

presents a dissected head for examination. However, the image, in terms of

technical detail, is not very useful as a medical illustration, according to

exhibit papers.

Meanwhile, Bartolomeo Eustachio's work, circa 1552, involved the use

of copper engraving, thereby involving more precise linear shading of the

vertebrae. The illustration from Tabulae Anatomicae was used until 1817 when

it was published in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Dr. Tomlinson pointed out another copper engraving from Anatomia

Humani Corporis, a 1685 work by Govard Bidloo.

It is interesting because it reveals the perspective of both the

anatomist and the artist. There is incredible attention paid not only to the

brain or spinal cord, but also to the dissection -- " the details of the

human intervention, " she said.

Article continues at:

http://www.ama-assn.org/sci-pubs/amnews/pick_01/hlsa0507.htm

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