May 2011

Parkinson’s can start in bed

sleeping womanNeurologists at the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Research Institute warn ‘those things that go bump or kick in the night’ may be signalling early onset of Parkinson’s disease.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) affects 80,000 Australians and while the causes of the condition remain largely unknown, Dr Simon Lewis, neurologist and senior lecturer in cognitive neuroscience says people don’t realise that the disease can have many different early manifestations.

“Interestingly, although best known for its physical symptoms like slowness and tremor, Parkinson’s disease is often preceded by a host of seemingly unrelated symptoms like mood change, loss of smell, constipation and sleep disorders. [continue reading…]

Commuting to work can be advantageous in terms of income and career opportunities, and it presents a good alternative to moving. But long commuting times also entail less time for family and friends and can lead to stress and health problems. Pair relationships are also jeopardized, and according to a new dissertation from Umeå University, the risk of separation is 40 percent higher among long-distance commuters than among other people.

Expanding job market regions are prompting more and more people to commute long distances to work, and for 11 percent of Swedes it takes at least 45 minutes to get to work. Many of them are parents of small children and live with their partner, and most of them are men.

“To be able to commute to work can be a positive thing because it means you don’t have to uproot your family with every career move but it can also be a strain on your relationship,” said author Erika Sandow

In her dissertation, social geographer Erika Sandow at Umeå University has mapped long-distance commuting in Sweden and examined its impacts on income and relationships. The findings show that even though income and careers often benefit from commuting, social costs are incurred, and, according to Erika Sandow, they should be included in the discussion.
Men benefit more from long-distance commuting [continue reading…]

old hand with wlaking stickOlder people cannot lie as convincingly as younger people, are worse at detecting when others are lying, and the latter is linked to age-related decline in emotion recognition, new University of Otago research suggests.

Department of Psychology researchers Ted Ruffman, Janice Murray and Jamin Halberstadt compared young and older adults’ skills at deception as judged by listeners within and outside their age group. Dr Murray presented the findings today at the Association of Psychological Science’s annual convention in Washington, D.C.

The study involved 60 participants being shown video clips of 20 people expressing their actual or false views on topical issues such as factory farming and stem cell use in humans. Ten of the speakers were aged 30 or under and 10 were 60 or over. Two clips of each speaker were shown; one in which they were lying, and the other being truthful.

The 60 listeners, who consisted of two equal-sized groups with average ages of 21 and 71, were asked to determine if the person in each clip was being truthful or lying. They also underwent tests that required judgments of emotional expression and age in faces.

Associate Professor Halberstadt says the results of the lie detection test showed that both young and older listeners found it easier to differentiate truths and lies when the speaker was an older adult compared to a young adult.

“It could be that older people are less convincing liars because the kinds of cognitive abilities required for successful deceit are also those that tend to deteriorate with age,” he says.

Lying places demands on memory and planning ability (e.g., formulating a plausible argument, keeping story facts straight) and on social understanding (e.g., judging whether a particular argument will convince a listener, as well as keeping track of a listener’s response as the lie unfolds to potentially alter the argument). [continue reading…]

alzheimers

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Stress promotes neuropathological changes that are also seen in Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich have discovered that the increased release of stress hormones in rats leads to generation of abnormally phosphorylated tau protein in the brain and ultimately, memory loss.

Protein deposits in nerve cells are a typical feature of Alzheimer’s disease: the excessive alteration of the tau protein through the addition of phosphate groups – a process known as hyperphosphorylation – causes the protein in the cells to aggregate into clumps. As a result, nerve cells die, particularly in the hippocampus, a part of the brain that plays an important role in learning and memory, as well as in the prefrontal cortex which regulates higher cognitive functions.

Fewer than ten percent of Alzheimer cases have a genetic basis. The factors that contribute to the rest of the cases are largely unknown. Following up on epidemiological studies, scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry hypothesized that adverse life events (stress) may be one trigger of Alzheimer’s disease. [continue reading…]