Brain & Behavior

People with insulin-dependent (type-1) diabetes have an increased risk of dying from a stroke, according to first-time findings from a large, community-based study reported in today’s rapid access issue of Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association. Cardiovascular disease is already recognized as the main cause of long-term complications and death in patients with diabetes. The likelihood of death from cerebrovascular disease ? related to the blood supply in the brain and the No. 1 cause of stroke ? has not been previously reported for patients with type-1 diabetes. Previous studies have shown that cerebrovascular death rates are raised in patients with type-2 diabetes (non?insulin-dependent diabetes).

They say money can’t buy love, but could it change the structure of your brain? When the going gets tough, do the tough live longer? And if an apple a day keeps the doctor away, what can hard apple cider do? For 45 years, the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) has provided policy makers and social science researchers with an unparalleled look at how education, career and family affect adult life. Housed in the Center for Demography of Health and Aging at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, this groundbreaking study repeatedly surveys thousands of 1957 graduates from all of Wisconsin’s high schools about their interests and experiences, habits and health.

A persistent, long-lasting headache or an endlessly painful back may indicate something more serious than a bad week at the office. A new study finds that people who have major depression are more than twice as likely to have chronic pain when compared to people who have no symptoms of depression. This study could change how depression is diagnosed and treated, say Stanford School of Medicine researchers.

Smokers diagnosed with schizophrenia had higher smoking cessation rates when treated with bupropion than with a placebo, according to a study led by Dr. Tony George at Yale University. Bupropion is a medication used to help people quit smoking and to treat depression. Researchers randomly assigned 32 schizophrenic cigarette smokers, who were clinically stable on antipsychotic medications and with a strong desire to quit smoking, to receive bupropion or placebo for 10 weeks. During the study, participants were periodically evaluated for smoking urges, depression, and symptoms of schizophrenia. They also attended weekly smoking cessation group therapy that included motivational enhancement therapy, social skills training, and relapse-prevention strategies.

Nicotine administration in humans is known to sharpen attention and to slightly enhance memory. Now scientists, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), have identified those areas of the brain where nicotine exerts its effects on cognitive skills. Their findings suggest that nicotine improves attention in smokers by enhancing activation in the posterior cortical and subcortical regions of the brain–areas traditionally associated with visual attention, arousal, and motor activation. This study provides the first evidence that nicotine-induced enhancement of parietal cortex activation is associated with improved attention.

Children who start to use alcohol, marijuana or other illicit drugs in their early teen years are more likely to experience psychiatric disorders, especially depression, in their late 20’s. Although teens who started smoking at an early age were at increased risk for alcohol dependence and substance use disorders in their late 20’s, they did not appear to be at an increased risk for depression or other psychiatric disorders. However, initiating tobacco use in late adolescence was associated with depression and other psychiatric disorders in the late 20s.

Both sides of the brain play a role in processing emotional communication, with the right side stepping in when we focus not on the “what” of an emotional message but rather on how it feels. By studying blood flow velocity to each side of the brain, Belgian psychologists have opened a window onto the richness and complexity of human emotional communication. Their research appears in the January 2003 issue of Neuropsychology, published by the American Psychological Association.

Overweight and obese individuals incur up to $1,500 more in annual medical costs than healthy-weight individuals, according to a two-year study of nearly 200,000 employees of General Motors. Average annual medical costs for normal weight individuals in the study were $2,225, while costs for overweight and obese individuals rose steadily, from $2,388 for overweight individuals to $3,753 for the most severely obese persons. The study, by Dee W. Edington, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan and colleagues, is the first to examine the relationship between medical costs and the six weight groups defined by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute’s weight guidelines. The guidelines separate individuals into categories of underweight, healthy-weight, overweight and three different obesity designations, based on average body mass index.

A Mayo Clinic investigation of Interleukin-6, a hormone inside cells often considered a “bad actor” of the immune system because of its association with inflammation injuries and malignant diseases, shows that it also plays a therapeutic role in mice: it protects brain cells. Interleukin-6 — called IL-6 for short by researchers — may, in fact, be a “white knight” for mouse brain cells, or neurons, as brain cells also are called. These results, while early, may be promising for humans as well. The Mayo Clinic investigation is described in the Jan. 15 Journal of Neuroscience.