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U-M Study: Why Dishing Does You Good
A University of Michigan study has identified a likely reason: feeling emotionally close to a friend increases levels of the hormone progesterone, helping to boost well-being and reduce anxiety and stress.
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More Gene Mutations Linked To Autism Risk
More pieces in the complex autism inheritance puzzle are emerging in the latest study from a research team including geneticists from The Children"s Hospital of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and several collaborating institutions. This study identified 27 different genetic regions where rare copy number variations missing or extra copies of DNA segments were found in the genes of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), but not in the healthy controls. The complex combination of multiple genetic duplications and deletions is thought to interfere with gene function, which can disrupt the production of proteins necessary for normal neurological development.
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Most Parents Support Using Newborn Screening Data For Research
More than three-quarters of parents would be willing to permit the use of their children"s newborn screening samples for research purposes if their permission were obtained beforehand, a University of Michigan survey shows.
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Darkness Linked To 'Brain Drain' In Depressed People

A lack of sunlight is associated with reduced cognitive function among depressed people. Researchers writing in BioMed Central"s open access journal Environmental Health used weather data from NASA satellites to measure sunlight exposure across the United States and linked this information to the prevalence of cognitive impairment in depressed people. Shia Kent, from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, led a team of US researchers who used cross-sectional data from 14,474 people in the NIH-NINDS-funded REGARDS study, a longitudinal study investigating stroke incidence and risk factors, to study associations between depression, cognitive function and sunlight. He said, "We found that among participants with depression, low exposure to sunlight was associated with a significantly higher predicted probability of cognitive impairment. This relationship remained significant after adjustment for season. This new finding that weather may not only affect mood, but also cognition, has significant implications for the treatment of depression, particularly seasonal affective disorder". Kent and his colleagues speculate that the physiological mechanisms that give rise to seasonal depression may also be involved in sunlight"s effect on cognitive function in the context of depressive symptoms. Cognitive function was assessed by measurement of short-term recall and temporal orientation. As well as regulating the hormones serotonin and melatonin, light has been shown to also affect brain blood flow, which has in turn been linked with cognitive functions. The researchers write, "Discovering the environment"s impact on cognitive functioning within the context of seasonal disorders may lead not only to better understanding of the disorders, but also to the development of targeted interventions to enhance everyday functioning and quality of life". Notes: Effect of sunlight exposure on cognitive function among depressed and non-depressed participants: a REGARDS cross-sectional study Shia T Kent, Leslie A McClure, William L Crosson, Donna K Arnett, Virginia G Wadley and Nalini Sathiakumar Environmental Health (in press) http://www.ehjournal.net/ Graeme Baldwin BioMed Central


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