Drugging Brains Young and Old

I read two interesting articles today on brain performance-enhancing of one kind or another. Denise Grady of the New York Times contributes a long article about the quest for an Alzheimer's cure:

Answers are urgently needed. Alzheimer's was first recognized 100 years ago, and in all that time science has been completely unable to change the course of the disease. Desperate families spend more than $1 billion a year on drugs approved for Alzheimer's that generally have only small effects, if any, on symptoms. Patients' agitation and hallucinations often drive relatives and nursing homes to resort to additional, powerful drugs approved for other diseases like schizophrenia, drugs that can deepen the oblivion and cause severe side effects like diabetes, stroke and movement disorders.

It's a good article with lots of history about the disease and its social and economic toll. But I found this passage the most significant:

The potential market for prevention and treatment is enormous, and drug companies are eager to exploit it. If a drug could prevent Alzheimer's or just reduce the risk, as statins like Lipitor do for heart disease, half the population over 55 would probably need to take it, Dr. Thies said.

If new drugs do emerge, they will come from studies in patients who already have symptoms, Dr. Thies said. But he said the emphasis would quickly shift to treating people at risk, before symptoms set in. Many researchers doubt that even the best preventive drugs will be able to heal the brains of people who are already demented.
Treating preventively, Dr. Thies said, "will be more satisfying to patients and physicians, and there will be an economic incentive because you'll wind up treating more people."

The only thing that could slow the drive for early treatment, he said, would be serious side effects -- and Dr. Morris, at Washington University, said drugs powerful enough to treat Alzheimer's would probably have strong side effects.

It's interesting to me because of the recent genetic stuff I've been working on. But also in light of this other story in today's LA Times, by writers Karen Kaplan and Denise Gellene:

Drugs to build up that mental muscle
Academics, musicians, even poker champs use pills to sharpen their minds, legally. Labs race to develop even more.
People are already using various psychoactive drugs to get a leg up in whatever mental competitions they pursue. Some of this is no more sophisticated than late-night coffee drinking for the Ritalin generation. But some is more surprising:

"There isn't any question about it -- they made me a much better player," said Paul Phillips, 35, who credited the attention deficit drug Adderall and the narcolepsy pill Provigil with helping him earn more than $2.3 million as a poker player.
...

The growth of the brain drugs bears a striking resemblance to the post-World War I evolution of plastic surgery -- developed to rehabilitate badly disfigured soldiers but later embraced by healthy people who wanted larger breasts and fewer wrinkles.
The use of cognitive-enhancing drugs has been well documented among high school and college students. A 2005 survey of more than 10,000 college students found 4% to 7% of them tried ADHD drugs at least once to remain focused on exams or pull all-nighters. At some colleges, more than one-quarter of students surveyed said they had sampled the pills.

The article discusses the "blockbuster drug that labs are racing to develop," a memory pill. Which of course brings us full circle to Alzheimer's treatment.

You may be thinking there is something unnatural about this; maybe even something unfair -- like an athlete using steroids to enhance his performance. But with psychological factors, it is a little more evident that there is a continuum of uses, some of which are pretty clearly acceptable. For example, the performance artists who take a pill to calm their nerves before appearing on stage are literally enhancing their performance, but in a way that is arguably different from their skill as artists.

Likewise, there is a continuum among normal people -- how do we justify allowing Adderall for the student who has trouble taking an eight-hour exam, but denying it to the student who had trouble sleeping before the exam?

Progress on these kinds of drugs will only come with understanding the continuum of psychological and cognitive variation among living people -- along with the causes of that variation, both developmental and genetic. We might like some chemical to increase memory performance. But the brain is a complicated place with countless interactions of different structural and regulatory processes. Maybe some people already have the chemicals that enhance memory, and other people don't, or don't express them in the right places in the right amounts. If so, then Alzheimer's treatment may focus on the metabolic processes of non-Alzheimer's brains, for example.

Plus, as we've learned recently with respect to traumatic stress, it's not always good to remember things well, so there is no reason to assume that the human population has been adapting toward longer or better memory. In general, it's not obvious exactly what memory characteristics have tended to increase fitness recently or during earlier phases of human evolution. Aside from the energy and life history constraints of large brains, we don't know what evolutionary trade-offs exist with respect to memory or other aspects of cognitive function.

Athletes take performance-enhancing drugs for a relatively slight advantage. Pharmaceutical firms are pursuing brain drugs on the expectation that millions of people will take a daily pill for years on end, in order to stave off Alzheimer's. Unshackling the mind power of a large proportion of the older population will no doubt have a tremendous impact on the societies of the future.

Pretty exciting stuff, if only we could figure it out.

Source:

Would I take some of those cognitive enhancement drugs if they had minimal-to-no side effects? Yes, I would. Would I take them if they had significant side effects? Probably yes, if I had a strong family history of age-related cognitive disorders. A pharmaceutical company wouldn't even have to come up with a cure, just a drug that would prevent further cognitive decline, in order to make a fortune.

Your Virtual Ph.D.

Want to master a new computer language? Brush up on your calculus? Learn how to fix your car? No sweat. With the vast array of college courses and podcasts available online, the apple of knowledge is ripe for the clicking. Here, we've narrowed the options to our favorites—the best of the geeky best, from free podcasts and lectures to accredited distance-learning programs from major universities.

UNIVERSITY EXTENSION PROGRAMS:

MIT OpenCourseWare

What Is It? Similar in philosophy to open-source software, OpenCourseWare offers anyone free access to course materials for virtually all of MIT's undergraduate and graduate courses. Once upon a time, you needed at least a library card to get a free education. But with this site, you can get rocket-scientist smart without even paying late fees.

Why's It Cool? This is a site for people who enjoy the pure pleasure of learning. You won't get credit for any of the course work—in fact, you won't even have access to teachers—but if you're a self-starter and curious, you can dabble in any of the subjects that MIT offers.

Can't Miss? The sheer volume of subjects available is stunning. The site offers course materials in everything from aeronautics to biological engineering to linguistics.

Harvard Extension School

What Is It? The Harvard Extension School provides access to roughly 100 online courses in art, science, math and technology, all from the comfort of your couch. Upcoming fall courses range from an introduction to Greek literature to a variety of Web-development classes.

Why's It Cool? These courses bring students right into the classroom with video lectures that are posted along with the other course materials. Bonus: Distance learners are always welcome to drop in on the real lecture if they happen to be passing through campus.

Can't Miss? For a sneak peek of what these courses are like, a few sample lectures are available online.

To see a review of more course offerings, visit the Popular Mechanics website here:

This is something that I ran across awhile back and wanted to put the information out again in case anybody else was interested in learning for no reason in particular. I always wanted to take classes at MIT but family, financial resources (lack of), and not wanting to actually LIVE up where people talk funny and don't know what grits or boiled peanuts are (shudder) were big obstacles. No, chilluns, when I was a little college student, there were no such things as on-line classes.

If I sign up for any, y'all will be the very first to know how I'm doing. Hopefully the experience won't consist of me sitting under the desk whimpering and contemplating the zen of wrist slitting.

The National Geographic Society, IBM, geneticist Spencer Wells, and the Waitt Family Foundation have launched the Genographic Project, a five-year effort to understand the human journey—where we came from and how we got to where we live today. This unprecedented effort will map humanity’s genetic journey through the ages.

The fossil record fixes human origins in Africa, but little is known about the great journey that took Homo sapiens to the far reaches of the Earth. How did we, each of us, end up where we are? Why do we appear in such a wide array of different colors and features?

Such questions are even more amazing in light of genetic evidence that we are all related—descended from a common African ancestor who lived only 60,000 years ago.

Though eons have passed, the full story remains clearly written in our genes—if only we can read it. With your help, we can.

When DNA is passed from one generation to the next, most of it is recombined by the processes that give each of us our individuality.

But some parts of the DNA chain remain largely intact through the generations, altered only occasionally by mutations which become “genetic markers.” These markers allow geneticists like Spencer Wells to trace our common evolutionary timeline back through the ages.

“The greatest history book ever written,” Wells says, “is the one hidden in our DNA.”

Different populations carry distinct markers. Following them through the generations reveals a genetic tree on which today’s many diverse branches may be followed ever backward to their common African root.

Our genes allow us to chart the ancient human migrations from Africa across the continents. Through one path, we can see living evidence of an ancient African trek, through India, to populate even isolated Australia.

But to fully complete the picture we must greatly expand the pool of genetic samples available from around the world. Time is short.

In a shrinking world, mixing populations are scrambling genetic signals. The key to this puzzle is acquiring genetic samples from the world’s remaining indigenous and traditional peoples whose ethnic and genetic identities are isolated.

But such distinct peoples, languages, and cultures are quickly vanishing into a 21st century global melting pot.

That’s why the Genographic Project has established ten research laboratories around the globe. Scientists are visiting Earth’s remote regions in a comprehensive effort to complete the planet’s genetic atlas.

But we don’t just need genetic information from Inuit and San Bushmen—we need yours as well. If you choose to participate and add your data to the global research database, you’ll help to delineate our common genetic tree, giving detailed shape to its many twigs and branches.

Together we can tell the ancient story of our shared human journey.

What to Expect
Your results will reveal your deep ancestry along a single line of direct descent (paternal or maternal) and show the migration paths they followed thousands of years ago. Your results will also place you on a particular branch of the human family tree. Some anthropological stories are more detailed than others, depending upon the lineage you belong to. For example, if you are of African descent, your results will show the initial movements of your ancestors on the African continent, but will not reflect most of the migrations that have occurred within the past 10,000 years. Your individual results may confirm your expectations of what you believe your deep ancestry to be, or you may be surprised to learn a new story about your genetic background.

You will not receive a percentage breakdown of your genetic background by ethnicity, race, or geographic origin. Nor will you receive confirmation of an association with a particular tribe or ethnic group.

Furthermore, this is not a genealogy study. You will not learn about your great-grandparents or other recent relatives, and your DNA trail will not necessarily lead to your present-day location. Rather, your results will reveal the anthropological story of your direct maternal or paternal ancestors—where they lived and how they migrated around the world many thousands of years ago.

For more details, read the National Geographic website.

I’m considering sending off a DNA sample and participating in this project. It would be interesting, to say the least, to find out where my maternal ancestors wandered.

Bowling for Iraq--Unusual Donation for Troops

When Doyle Claxton of United Bowling in Yulee received an e-mail from a soldier in Iraq asking if his unit could get two bowling lanes, he knew this was a wish he could fulfill.

Master Sgt. Robert Beane of Ft. Riley, Kan., who is currently stationed in Iraq, contacted Claxton through the United Bowling website. In making his request, Beane stated he and his unit rarely get down time, but the time they do get is priceless.

The Army does its best to keep the troops entertained.

"They try to come up with things like karaoke and stuff like that," said Beane in a phone call to the News-Leader from Iraq.

"But unless it comes from the States, a band or a singer, there's not too much else for us to do around here."

Beane, who is a semi-professional bowler back home, said he was kidded by friends who said, "What are you going to do when you get over there, Beane? How are you going to bowl?"

Beane said he'd throw down some plywood and make a lane that way if he had to, but thanks to Claxton, he and the other bowlers in his unit will soon have real bowling lanes.

"It's exciting!" said Beane. "Nothing like this has ever been done before so we're doing a lot of work on this end, trying to make everything happen."

Getting the bowling equipment to the soldiers involves having it delivered to a military base where it will be shipped to the troops overseas.

"We've had this idea for quite some time, but never had much extra time to focus on it," said Claxton, who is footing the bill for the project.

Two lanes normally cost approximately $120,000 installed. Overseas shipments are usually between $4,000 to $5,000, but this will be handled by the U.S. military.

With no professional installer on base, Claxton said he will provide the necessary manuals and documentation to make it as easy as possible for the troops to install the lanes.

"We can also communicate via e-mail for further assistance," Claxton said.

The two-lane bowling alley will be simple to set up and will also have to withstand the harsh desert environment.

"Everything will be old-school, with no complex pin-setting machines or electronic scoring. The pins will have to be set by hand and the score added manually, but it is the most ideal scenario for the circumstances," said Claxton.

Read the rest at the News Leader, Fernandina Beach.

Paramedics cruise on Harleys
Firefighter paramedics on Harleys can zip through traffic much quicker than a firetruck, potentially saving lives. And they look cool doing it.

Lt. Charles Perdomo, foreground, and firefighter Johnny Suarez are 'motor medics.'

Traffic in Miami is bad. Really bad. Year after year, the rage-inspiring clogged roadways make headlines. But while driving in South Florida is a chore for the common commuter, for Miami-Dade fire rescue, it's a matter of life and death.

The department has found an answer: pairing up firefighter paramedics, issuing them motorcycles, dressing them in reflective air-bag vests, equipping them with a trove of life-saving equipment and freeing them to roam the streets.

When their radios crackle with word of a crash, a shooting or a heart attack, they weave through cars at speeds ranging from 20 to 90 miles an hour to get there.

The result? The county's four full-time Motorcycle Emergency Response Team members not only beat civilian traffic, they usually trump their truck-riding colleagues, typically by three minutes, sometimes up to five, responding to everything from a child's cut finger to the recent fatal police shooting in Southwest Dade.

It is one of a few full-time programs of its kind in the country.

''There was some apprehension at first,'' said Lt. Charles Perdomo, 38, one of the riders. ``The concept is brand new. It's still in its infancy. But the crews see us now, and we're out there every day -- they've grown to know us and to depend on us.''

Depend they do: On a recent Tuesday, the firefighters responded to a house fire (arriving at the same time as a fire engine), a car crash on the turnpike (beating the fire engines and the Florida Highway Patrol by four minutes) and a heart attack.

Because they were on bikes less than 40 inches wide as opposed to trucks -- the narrowest of which is 10 feet wide -- the ''motor medics'' were able to zigzag through the cars and zip down narrow shoulders.

''We're trying to buy as much time as possible for the patients,'' said Capt. Roman Bas, who runs the program. ``The fire stations have what they call a fixed response. We have a dynamic response. We're already moving. It gives us an advantage.''

``We do things on-duty. We do things off-duty. We have our own sense of brotherhood.''

Read the rest.....

Now if only Miami could decide on which country's traffic laws to obey.....

Drop rounded spoonfuls on baking sheet.....

I was making drop biscuits this morning, and smiled to myself as I recalled a frantic telephone conversation with a friend.

"What in the HELL does it mean, 'drop by rounded spoonfuls'? It doesn't even say what SIZE of spoon!"

I thought that all southerners picked up cooking skills by osmosis merely by being around the kitchen when they were young and watching how their mommas and grandmas cooked and just knew by the smell and taste when something was "right". I thought wrong.

"What are you making?"

"Cookies."

"Then probably you'll want to use a teaspoon."

"Okay. I'll get it out of the dishwasher."

"You don't have to use a measuring spoon! Just use one from your silverware."

"But that isn't exactly a teaspoon."

"IT DOESN'T MATTER! Just use it and if the cookies turn out too large or small when they're finished baking, adjust the next batch." Sheesh.

After I hung up the phone, I reflected back on my cooking career. When I was young, I decided I was not EVER going to cook. My plans included a career. Marriage, children, and low financial resources never entered into my thought processes. I was going to eat at restaurants forever. I refused to let my momma entice me into the kitchen when I entered my teens and, as I was always working after school and during the summer, evading learning advanced cooking skills was easy. Oh, I did have a few skills, like making killer hashbrowns, scrambled eggs, fried taters, grits, picking and cooking wild greens, frying squash and green 'maters. I avoided things like biscuits, making jelly, frying chicken, and canning produce from the garden for the winter.

The female relatives tsked tsked when speaking of me. "How is she ever going to take care of a household if she can't cook? She doesn't even make biscuits!" My thought on the matter was that if I never ate a homemade biscuit again with homemade grape jelly and home-churned butter, well, I would just die a happy woman with a life well spent in avoiding drudgery.

After I graduated high school, I ended up a long, long way from home, courtesy of Uncle Sam. I highly recommended military service to anyone who wants to get away from home in the worst possible way (heh) and see the world. Then while I was in the military and having an absolutely wonderful time (except for the inability to sleep in), I did the unthinkable. I fell in love and got married. Now we both had an absolutely wonderful time and ate out at restaurants except for the occasional meal of Hamburger Helper, hashbrowns, fried 'taters, or scrambled eggs. If we ran short of restaurant funds, we could eat at the mess hall.

Life was very good until the birth control pills didn't and baby made a family. This was no ordinary baby. This was a baby that was allergic to baby formula. All of them. He had to be breastfed at frequent intervals. I was on orders to Korea for after the baby was born. Husband's enlistment was up at this time. He had been planning on taking care of the baby when I was gone, but he was deficient in the lactating department and the U.S. Army did not encourage nursing at @ 2-hour intervals. I had to get a hardship (honorable) discharge (which was fine with the Army as they were RIFing at the time). (RIF = Reduction in Force.)

So there we were, suddenly plunged into civilian life with a baby, limited savings because we spent it all on restaurants and travel, and no income which meant no money for restaurants. Since one of us had to stay at home and lactate while the other one pounded the pavement looking for a job, one of us had to learn some cooking skills.

Note: The recipe linked at the top is not my recipe for drop biscuits with cheddar cheese. MY recipe includes 1/2 tsp. garlic. When kids would ask me why I would put things like garlic into biscuits, my answer was because it keeps vampires away! When they protested that there are no vampires in Florida, I would say "See how well it works?"

GENEVA (AFP) — The World Health Organisation on Friday ruled out any mutation of the potentially fatal H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus after a case of inter-human transmission of bird flu may have been detected in Pakistan.

"There is no suggestion that the virus has changed into a form that poses a broader risk," WHO spokesman John Rainford told AFP. "If that had been the case, we would have witnessed more cases of human transmission."

Rainford said that the genetic sequencing of the virus involved in the latest case was being continued.

Laboratory tests have already established that the Pakistani man had been infected with H5N1, even though he had not been in contact with contaminated poultry.

"Because we have an individual not directly exposed to sick birds suggests a limited human-to-human transmission," Rainford had told AFP on Thursday.

According to results of investigations conducted by Pakistan's health ministry, the H5N1-positive case was a 25-year-old man from the Peshawar area who developed febrile respiratory illness on November 21, was hospitalized on November 23, and died on November 28.

He is the third of four brothers who developed proven or suspected pneumonia with illness onset dates between October 29 and November 21, said Rainford.

The brothers provided care for one another and had close personal contact in both the home and hospital.

Human-to-human contamination has been reported in Cambodia, Indonesia and Vietnam in recent months, but has not spread beyond a single person. A suspected case in China was denied by the authorities there.

Experts fear that if the H5N1 strain mutates into a highly contagious form, it would provoke a pandemic on the scale of the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak, which claimed tens of millions of lives.

The WHO team was sent to Pakistan after the health ministry announced the death of a man who was one of six people infected with the H5N1 strain in North West Frontier Province along the Afghanistan border.

A brother of the victim also died before being tested for the virus. Both had worked on a cull of infected poultry.

"Wherever you have poultry outbreaks, you have to be on guard for human cases," Rainford cautioned.

Any "limited" human-to-human transmissions is cause for concern for me. By the time human-to-human transmission is proved to have occurred, it could already be widespread. Having food stored up in case of a sudden quarantine seems prudent. Being current on your flu vaccine is also a good idea as we enter into the peak flu season.

Princesses Don't Wear Blue Jeans

"Grammaw, why did those people smile and hold the door open for us?" asked the lil' granddaughter.

"I think it was because they recognized that we were princesses", I explained. It probably had a lot to do with one of us wearing blue hair, a tiara, and carrying a color-coordinated magic wand casting spells on the other one of us that was carrying a couple of bags and a huge dog bed. I was now a big sick green frog that was never, ever going to get better, or so I was told.

"Grammaw", she said severely "we are not dressed like princesses".

"Well, how do princesses dress?"

"They do not wear blue jeans. They wear sparkly, pretty dresses."

"Then how about if I sprayed some sparkle spray on my blue jeans to highlight the cellulite?"

"What?"

"Never mind."

"Grammaw, princesses don't ever wear blue jeans." There must be some princess handbook out there for 6 year olds because she sounded very sure of her facts.

"Never? Not even when they clean the castle?"

"GRAMMAW! Princesses don't CLEAN." She sounded horrified, as if I had suggested that princesses eat babies.

"What do they do then?"

"They wear pretty clothes and go to balls."

"Sounds pretty boring to me." Uncomfortable, too. I don't know how many hours on end I could keep my stomach sucked in and my chest stuck out. Not to mention that after the ordeal of getting into that party dress, there would be no drinking and eating for me.

"They try on pretty clothes, too. You don't even have on a princess shirt."

"What's wrong with my shirt? Isn't it princessy enough?" It was a long-sleeved red henley, a little worse for wear, the kind that a self-respecting princess would rather be eaten by a dragon than be seen in public in.

"It has HAY on it." So it did. It probably had horse boogers on it somewhere, too. I'd really rather not know what my back looked like.

"How about if I put sparkles on it?"

"No."

"How about if I put sparkles on the hay?"

"No, grammaw, princesses do not have hay on them."

"Not even when they go out to visit the knights that are off to slay dragons for them? Not even if they have a stableboy named Arrrrrmando?"

"GRAMMAW! There are NO SUCH THINGS as dragons!"

"That's because the knights and princes killed them all to impress princesses. We princesses are very hard to impress and used to require at least one dead dragon per proposal of marriage. They had to kill the dragon because the dragons have a lot of gold and princesses require a lot of spending money." She pondered that for a bit, and decided that it made sense.

"Did papa kill any dragons for you?"

"No, baby, they were all extinct by then. That's why I have to wear clothes without sparkles, even blue jeans, and carry my own hay because I do not have a stable boy. Papa killed a spider once, though."

"Was it big and scary?"

"EXTREMELY big and scary. It had lots of glowing green eyes and fangs that were dripping poison."

After considering it, she decided that papa's valor in killing the spider was roughly equivalent to a prince killing a dragon, even though it didn't do anything for the bank account.

Goldfish: Hardy as Cockroaches

My daughter fell in loooove, got married, and moved away 4 years ago. Since she married a sailor (and a city boy at that), she left me with her Doberman, her cats, her horses, a room full of stuffed animals, several boxes of books, a shelf full of 4-H show trophies that I had better not toss and have to dust occasionally when the sheep on the trophies look like they are sporting a long coat of wool, her 4-H sheep, chickens, ducks, and her goldfish.

In the intervening time frame, she has produced two lovely children. Her old horse Checkers (32+ years) bit the dust (but the Hell Bitch mare is still going strong at 22). Her Doberman died. Her show chickens have been allowed to mingle, breed indiscriminately, and raise odd-looking crossbred progeny. Her mallard ducks were eaten by foxes. The muscovy descendents are still around, no matter how many I get rid of. Her Rambouillet sheep died of sheer orneriness except for one still holding out. Her hairless cats died of cancer.

The goldfish, though, are still going strong with care from me that varies from indifference to outright neglect. I forget to feed them. I do not clean their bowl on a regular basis. I occasionally have the urge to put in an outdoor fishpond so I can photograph the herons eating them, but (sigh) her dad would tell on me. Here lately, I think that they might be growing on me. They congregate in the fish bowl closest to my computer and stare at me. Occasionally they'll pick up rocks and spit them at the glass to get my attention, I presume, to remind me that they need food. What the hell, the herons will just have to find their own fish.

Introduction

While I've commented on several other blogs ad nauseum, I've successfully resisted the urge to have one of my own, telling myself that I don't have the time necessary to devote to one. Since I have been overwhelming the sites that I'm at with commentary, perhaps it is time to reconsider that position.

You will find that I have a wide variety of interests. One post may be a commentary on raising sheep in Florida, while another may be an update on the H5N1 virus. Whatever piques my interest at the time is what is going to be posted.