Research round up

By Joseph Milton

Bankers take note: brain area responsible for financial risk-taking discovered

The aversion to losing money has been tied to specific structures in the brain, the amygdalae – two almond-shaped clusters of tissue located in the medial temporal lobes. The amygdalae register rapid emotional reactions and are involved in depression, anxiety, and autism.

The study by neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), published in this week’s PNAS, offers insight into the role of these structures in economic behaviour.

Two patients whose amygdalae had been destroyed by a genetic disease took part in a simple ‘experimental economics task.’ Both of these patients took risky gambles much more often than subjects of the same age and education who had fully functioning amygdalae.

Even third-hand cigarette smoke is deadly

Tobacco smoke residues which remain on surfaces after cigarettes are extinguished react with the common indoor air pollutant nitrous acid to produce dangerous carcinogens.

A study published in this week’s PNAS and led by researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) found that residual nicotine reacts with ambient nitrous acid – created by unvented gas appliances – forming carcinogenic tobacco-specific nitrosamines or TSNAs.

Hugo Destaillats, a chemist with the Indoor Environment Department of Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division said: “TSNAs are among the most broadly acting and potent carcinogens present in unburned tobacco and tobacco smoke.”

Earlier springs could devastate British wildlife

Spring and summer are occurring earlier in the UK and the effect appears to be accelerating, which could have a devastating effect on British wildlife.

Research led by Dr Stephen Thackeray and Professor Sarah Wanless of the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, and published in Global Change Biology, gathered together more than 25,000 records of phenology – dates of reproduction – for 726 species of plants and animals.

More than 80 per cent of trends recorded between 1976 and 2005 indicated that the seasons are occurring earlier.

On average, reproduction is taking place more than 11 days earlier, over the whole period, and the rate of change has accelerated in recent decades.

Cold turkey the best way to stop smoking

The most successful method used to quit by ex-smokers is unassisted cessation, or going ‘cold turkey’, according to a review of 511 studies published in 2007 and 2008.

In this week’s PLoS Medicine, Simon Chapman and Ross MacKenzie, from the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney, Australia, stress the overemphasis on methods such as nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) which they claim has led to the “medicalisation of smoking cessation.”

The authors report that studies repeatedly show that two-thirds to three-quarters of ex-smokers stop unaided.

Feeling blue – or is it grey?

People with anxiety and depression tend to use a shade of grey to represent their mental state.

Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Medical Research Methodology created a wheel of colors of various intensities. Depressed people who were asked which color represented their mood mostly chose grey, whereas healthy subjects tended to pick a shade of yellow.

Mediterranean diet could help limit brain damage

A Mediterranean diet – high in vegetables and fish and low in meat and dairy products- may help avoid small areas of brain damage associated with problems in thinking and memory.

Brain infarcts, or small areas of dead tissue, were 36 per cent less common in people who ate a Mediterranean-like diet, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 62nd Annual Meeting in Toronto in April.