pros 189.9999 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire. Google founder Sergey Brin's investment in his wife's genome-screening company has gotten even more personal: the product has revealed he carries a genetic mutation linked to Parkinson's disease.

Brin writes on his blog that the genome scan of his saliva from 23andMe told him he has a mutation on the LRRK2 gene, a variation called G2019S, which ups the risk for Parkinson's in some families. Brin's mother has the neurodegenerative disorder and the mutation, he writes. http://louis1j1sheehan.us

"When my wife asked me to look up G2019S in my raw data … I viewed it mostly as entertainment," Brin recalls in the blog. "But, of course, I learned something very important to me."

He adds: "The exact implications of this are not entirely clear. Nonetheless it is clear that I have a markedly higher chance of developing Parkinson's in my lifetime than the average person. In fact, it is somewhere between 20 percent to 80 percent depending on the study and how you measure."

Whole genome screens like those offered by 23andMe are marketed as informational, not diagnostic. And while Brin doesn’t have Parkinson's disease, the fact that his test revealed a heightened risk for so serious a condition underscores concerns of New York State health authorities, who have sent letters to three dozen DNA-screening companies informing them that it's illegal to offer medical tests in the state without a license, the New York Times recently reported. Earlier this summer, California health officials sent cease-and-desist letters to 11 companies, telling them they needed licenses to operate as medical labs and that only licensed physicians can order such tests; 23andMe and another company, Navigenics, were awarded licenses to operate last month.

It's not clear from Brin's blog when he found out that he carried the Parkinson's gene. "I feel fortunate to be in this position," he writes, noting that exercise could help protect him from the disease. Just last week, he told SciAm editors at a 23andMe "spit party" in New York that it's useful to know one's own genetic code.

"It's a really good thing to know," Brin said. "It can help you out in any number of things. Whether it's lactose intolerance — stay away from cheese — or don't accidentally marry your cousin." http://louis1j1sheehan.us

Apparently the disclosure did not hurt Brin's company. Quite the contrary: Google stock was up 12 points at 1 p.m. today.

The pros and cons of genetic testing – not to mention those done by private companies -- have been hotly debated. President Bush signed a measure into law in May that bars insurance companies and employers from discriminating against anyone because of the findings of genetic testing. There's also a push to pass legislation that prevents insurance companies from refusing to cover or charging higher rates for pre-existing conditions.

You can listen to SciAm's entire interview with Brin below, along with the editors' chat with 23andMe co-founder Linda Avey. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

subthalmic 0000306 Louis J. Sheehan

Louis J. Sheehan

Inert substances used as sham medications, or placebos, temporarily benefit some people with Parkinson's disease by easing the activity of brain cells that contribute to their condition, according to a new trial. http://louis-j-sheehan.com

A research team led by Fabrizio Benedetti of the University of Turin Medical School in Italy first gave 11 Parkinson's patients injections of a medication that briefly quelled muscle rigidity and related symptoms. The drug, apomorphine, raises brain concentrations of dopamine, a brain-signal transmitter.

After the drug's effect had worn off, the researchers temporarily inserted a hair-thin electrode into each volunteer's brain to measure electrical signals emitted by cells in a Parkinson's-implicated area called the subthalamic nucleus. As expected, all the patients exhibited excessive neural activity in this region. http://louis-j-sheehan.com

These same people then received a placebo injection of a salt solution that they believed was apomorphine. In six of the patients, Parkinson's symptoms temporarily improved and electrical activity in the subthalamic nucleus declined markedly and occurred at a more even pace than it had before the volunteers received the placebo. The five people who gained no relief from their symptoms after the placebo injection exhibited no neural change.

The results, published in the June Nature Neuroscience, elaborate on preliminary evidence that placebos may aid individuals with Parkinson's disease

light

Dear EarthTalk: Can those energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs that are popular now cause headaches because of the flickering they do? I converted my whole house over last fall and both my kids were complaining of headaches on and off.
-- Sandy, Eugene, OR

With a switch to energy efficient compact fluorescent (CFL) light bulbs already in full swing in the U.S. and elsewhere—Australia has banned incandescents, Britain will soon, and the U.S. begins a phase-out of incandescents in 2012—more and more complaints have arisen about the new bulbs causing headaches.

Many experts say that the issue is being overblown, however, that there is no scientific evidence that the bulbs cause headaches and that a kind of hysteria has grown out of a small number of anecdotal reports.http://ljsheehan.livejournal.com

Industry experts acknowledge that day-to-day exposure to older, magnetically ballasted long tube fluorescent bulbs found mostly in industrial and institutional settings could cause headaches due to their noticeable flicker rate. The human brain can detect the 60 cycles per second such older bulbs need to refresh themselves to keep putting out light.

However, modern, electronically ballasted CFLs refresh themselves at between 10,000 and 40,000 cycles per second, rates too fast for the human eye or brain to detect. “As far as I’m aware there is no association between headaches and the use of compact fluorescent lamps,” says Phil Scarbro of Energy Federation Incorporated (EFI), a leading distributor of energy efficiency-related products—including many CFLs.

But Magda Havas, an Environmental & Resource Studies Ph.D. at Canada’s Trent University, says that some CFLs emit radio frequency radiation that can cause fatigue, dizziness, ringing in the ears, eyestrain, even migraines. You can test to see if CFLs in your home give off such radiation, she says, by putting a portable AM radio near one that’s on and listening for extra static the closer you get. She says that such electromagnetic interference should also be of concern to people using cell phones and wireless computers.http://louis-j-sheehan.info

Sometimes headaches are due to eyestrain from inadequate lighting. When replacing an incandescent bulb with a CFL, pay attention to the lumens, which indicate the amount of light a bulb gives out (watts measure the energy use of a bulb, not the light generated). A 40-watt incandescent bulb can be replaced by an 11-14 watt CFL because the lumen ouput is approximately the same (490); a 100-watt incandescent can be replaced by a 26-29 watt CFL, both providing about 1,750 lumens. If you’re still skeptical, replace a 40-watt incandescent with a 60-watt equivalent 15-19 watt CFL, which will boost lumens to 900.

Another consideration is color temperature (measured in degrees “Kelvin”). CFLs rated at 2,700 Kelvin give off light in the more pleasing red/yellow end of the color spectrum, closer to that of most incandescents. Bulbs rated at 5,000 Kelvin and above (usually older ones) give off a less pleasing white/blue light.

The Environmental Defense website provides a handy chart comparing the watts and lumens of incandescents versus CFLs, along with further discussion about color temperature.

testing

A brief course on how to pay attention boosts children's scores on either intelligence or attention tests, depending on their age, a new study finds.

The training may quicken normal brain development, says a team of neuroscientists led by Michael I. Posner of the University of Oregon in Eugene. Earlier research had indicated that brain areas involved in controlling attention in the presence of conflicting information develop rapidly between ages 4 and 6.

Over 2 to 3 weeks, Posner's team administered five training sessions to 4-year-olds and 6-year-olds. The younger kids showed higher IQ boosts—and the older ones, greater attention gains—than untrained kids did, the researchers report in an upcoming Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers also note that their study showed enhanced electric signaling in the brains of the children who received the training. Genetic differences, which the researchers analyzed in the 6-year-olds, influenced training effects too. http://Louis2J2Sheehan2Esquire.US

Attention training "could potentially lead to better intervention strategies for children with attention and other behavior problems," according to Karla Holmboe and Mark H. Johnson, both neuroscientists at the University of London in England, in a comment published with the new study.

Posner and his colleagues recruited 49 kids in the younger group and 24 in the older group. The children received intelligence and attention testing while most of them wore sensor nets on their heads to measure electrical signals on the brain's surface. Then, the children were randomly assigned to receive attention training or no training.

The training was adapted from tasks that increase attention control in monkeys. For example, children moved a cartoon cat across a computer screen using a joystick to keep the cat out of expanding muddy areas. http://Louis2J2Sheehan2Esquire.US

After training, all the children were again tested on intelligence and attention.

Brain regions activated in the 4-year-olds by attention training overlapped with those previously tied to IQ (SN: 7/29/00, p. 72: Available to subscribers at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20000729/note12.asp), Posner says. That neural intermingling toward the front of the brain could explain why average intelligence scores rose 6 points among 4-year-olds after attention training, compared with a 1-point increase for untrained 4-year-olds, he suggests. Trained 4-year-olds displayed a much narrower advantage on an attention test.

Among 6-year-olds, training yielded a slight IQ-score advantage but a marked gain in attention control, also called executive attention. During testing, trained kids in this group showed strong neural responses toward the back of the brain, whereas untrained kids displayed predominantly frontal-brain activity, perhaps reflecting conscious effort.

DNA testing examined a gene that influences transmission of the chemical messenger dopamine. Posner's findings indicated that 6-year-olds bearing one form of the gene displayed the poorest attention control before the training and the most improvement with training. The gene variant had been previously linked to an outgoing temperament.

Attention training engages brain networks that unconsciously orchestrate executive attention, propose Holmboe and Johnson. Untrained individuals devote considerable conscious effort to attention tasks and thus invoke other brain areas.

Posner's team is now studying attention training with preschoolers who have symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

adhd

Brain maturation in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) lags several years behind that of children with no psychiatric or neurological ailments, according to a new brain-imaging study. http://louisejesheehan.blogspot.com

Developmental delays in ADHD hit a peak of 5 years in regions at the front of the brain's outer layer, or cortex, say psychiatrist Philip Shaw of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md., and his colleagues. http://louisejesheehan.blogspot.com These areas assist in controlling attention and in planning upcoming actions.

Kids with ADHD display the same sequence of brain development as healthy youngsters do, the researchers find. Sensory and motor areas attain maximum thickness first, before a thinning-out process begins. Regions that integrate information from different neural sources then do the same. These findings indicate that ADHD involves a slowing, rather than a derailing, of brain maturation, Shaw argues.

A slight developmental speedup occurs in the motor cortex of children with ADHD, the researchers note. A neural mismatch between an early-maturing motor cortex and a late-maturing frontal cortex might account for the restlessness and fidgety behavior seen in ADHD, they propose.

Shaw's group used magnetic resonance imaging to gauge the thickness of neural tissue at more than 40,000 sites throughout the cortex. The researchers scanned 223 youths with ADHD and 223 typically developing children, whose ages ranged from around 7 to 13 at the study's start.

Among youngsters with ADHD, much of the cortex reached maximum thickness at an average age of 10.5, compared to age 7.5 for the others. Shaw's investigation will appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://louisejesheehan.blogspot.com

adhd

Brain maturation in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) lags several years behind that of children with no psychiatric or neurological ailments, according to a new brain-imaging study. http://louisejesheehan.blogspot.com

Developmental delays in ADHD hit a peak of 5 years in regions at the front of the brain's outer layer, or cortex, say psychiatrist Philip Shaw of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md., and his colleagues. http://louisejesheehan.blogspot.com These areas assist in controlling attention and in planning upcoming actions.

Kids with ADHD display the same sequence of brain development as healthy youngsters do, the researchers find. Sensory and motor areas attain maximum thickness first, before a thinning-out process begins. Regions that integrate information from different neural sources then do the same. These findings indicate that ADHD involves a slowing, rather than a derailing, of brain maturation, Shaw argues.

A slight developmental speedup occurs in the motor cortex of children with ADHD, the researchers note. A neural mismatch between an early-maturing motor cortex and a late-maturing frontal cortex might account for the restlessness and fidgety behavior seen in ADHD, they propose.

Shaw's group used magnetic resonance imaging to gauge the thickness of neural tissue at more than 40,000 sites throughout the cortex. The researchers scanned 223 youths with ADHD and 223 typically developing children, whose ages ranged from around 7 to 13 at the study's start.

Among youngsters with ADHD, much of the cortex reached maximum thickness at an average age of 10.5, compared to age 7.5 for the others. Shaw's investigation will appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://louisejesheehan.blogspot.com

leeds

Call it a happy accident: Phytoplankton in tropical areas of the Atlantic Ocean may be helping to break down greenhouse gases. http://Louis2J2Sheehan2Esquire.US

After analyzing data gathered by airplane and in a lab at Cape Verde, a chain of Atlantic islands not far from West Africa, a team of British researchers was pleased but puzzled to find that ozone in the atmosphere near the islands had decreased 50 percent more than climate modelers had predicted. The reason, they think, is that phytoplankton produce chemicals like bromine monoxide and iodine monoxide that get pulled up into the atmosphere by all the water vapor that evaporates in a hot climate like Cape Verde. Once aloft in the low atmosphere, these chemicals can break apart ozone molecules. Not only that, says Alastair Lewis, of the U.K.’s National Centre for Atmospheric Science, but the byproducts of that first chemical reaction then broke down methane, a much worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, into non-harmful components.

Ozone is three atoms molecules of oxygen, O₃, but some chemicals can break up that trio and steal one oxygen atom, leaving O₂, which is just plain old atmospheric oxygen. That’s how CFCs harm the ozone layer, and why the Montreal Protocol of 1987 phased them out. http://Louis2J2Sheehan2Esquire.US The plankton-produced chemical in this study might be destroying ozone in the same way, Lewis says, but helping us instead of hurting. While ozone high up in the ozone layer protects us from the sun’s ultraviolet radiation, ozone in the lower atmosphere is a greenhouse gas contributing to global warming.

The study brings good news, Lewis says, but he wants to keep it in perspective—if the amount of fossil fuel-created nitrogen oxides coming to the Cape Verde area increased slightly, it could offset this greenhouse reduction. But it’s nice to hear some good climate news for a change, however small. And John Plane from the University of Leeds, another study participant, said that ozone destruction over the ocean could be happening in other parts of the world. http://Louis2J2Sheehan2Esquire.US

So this study represents a win and a loss: We still have a long way to go in understanding the working of the atmosphere, but at least somewhere in the world the greenhouse gas concentrations aren’t going up.