October 27, 2006, 9:13 PM CT

Profiles Of Serial Killers Have Limitations

Dennis Rader, the notorious BTK murderer who eluded capture for more than 30 years until his arrest in 2005, did not fit precisely into the FBI's method for profiling serial killers on the basis of crime scenes.

And Aileen Wuornos, the Florida prostitute executed in 2002 for slaying seven men over a two-year period in the early 1990s, didn't fit at all because the database of convicted serial killers used by the FBI in developing their profiling method did not include women.

The cases of Rader and Wuornos are among the topics to be explored during a panel discussion led by Dr. Charles L. Scott, a forensic psychiatrist at UC Davis Health System, at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Friday at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Chicago. Scott will examine the way the bureau develops the personality profiles used by scientists in serial murder cases. He also will look at alternative profiling methods, such as one developed by a crime writer that uses motive to sketch a female offender's likely character traits.

"The FBI profiling method has many positive attributes. But it also has some inherent limitations," Scott said.

Scott, associate professor of clinical psychiatry with the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, will be one of four panelists in the talk, dubbed "Serial Killers: From Cradle to Grave." It is one of many events slated at the meeting, which began Thursday and runs through Sunday. The annual conference seeks to cover the major issues facing forensic psychiatrists.........

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October 27, 2006, 5:00 AM CT

Survivors of organized violence

A series of studies, conducted by a psychotraumatology research group headed by Thomas Elbert in collaboration with Penn State psychology expert William Ray, has examined a group of people who have been exposed to different magnitudes of torture and found the appearance of dissociation (mental separation from the incident) long after the event. The research is reported in the latest issue of Psychological Science.

Those who experienced multiple and extreme trauma stopped responding physiologically and began to feel numb. The scientists think that, just as the body can turn off some of its stress response during feelings of great terror or helplessness, the mind has a way of turning off strong emotions in overwhelming situations.

The research group examined the functional architecture of the brain in relation to varying degrees of dissociation. They found that dissociative experiences are reflected in slow, abnormal brainwaves in an area that contributes to verbalizing and the ability to plan and prepare for actions.

Observation of structural or functional brain lesions has led the authors to interpret their findings as a sign of the brain decoupling these regions from sensory experience and action. They believe this is the only response that seems possible during serious torture but note that, when maintained during the later part of life, the long-term consequences are devastating. This brain reorganization is maintained even when the torture is over.........

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October 27, 2006, 4:54 AM CT

Media And Body-image

New research explores the relationship between so called "thin-ideal" images in the media and body-image issues among young women. Female undergraduates who viewed advertisements displaying ultra-thin women exhibited increases in body dissatisfaction, negative mood, levels of depression and lowered self-esteem. These findings were especially true for women who have negative views of their current body image and believe themselves to be overweight.

The study shows that women who possess these body image concerns are twice as likely to compare their own bodies to those of the thin models in the advertisements. They are also more likely to have those comparisons affect their self-worth, leading to feelings of depression, body dissatisfaction and preoccupation with diet and exercise. On the other hand, women who are content with their bodies did not show any effects from viewing thin-ideal advertisements.

"Women who already have low opinions of their physical appearance are at an even greater risk for negative effects from media images," says Gayle R. Bessenoff, Ph.D., author of the study. "Understanding who will compare to media ideals and when this comparison will take place can help further our understanding of the role of the media in the development of eating disorders".........

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October 26, 2006, 5:19 AM CT

Moderate Drinking May Boost Memory

In the long run, a drink or two a day may be good for the brain.

Scientists observed that moderate amounts of alcohol - amounts equivalent to a couple of drinks a day for a human - improved the memories of laboratory rats.

Such a finding may have implications for serious neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, said Matthew During, the study's senior author and a professor of molecular virology, immunology and cancer genetics at Ohio State University.

"There is some evidence suggesting that mild to moderate alcohol consumption can protect against diseases like Alzheimer's in humans," said During. "But it's not apparent how this happens".

He and his colleague, Margaret Kalev-Zylinska, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Auckland, in New Zealand, uncovered a neuronal mechanism that may help explain the link between alcohol and improved memory.

"We saw a noticeable change on the surface of certain neurons in rats that were given alcohol," During said. "This change may have something to do with the positive effects of alcohol on memory".

The scientists presented their findings at the annual Society for Neuroscience conference in Atlanta.

During and Kalev-Zylinska designed a special liquid diet for the rats. One formulation included a low dose of alcohol, comparable to two or three drinks a day for a human, while the other diet included a much higher dose of alcohol, comparable to six or seven drinks a day for a human. A third group of rats was given a liquid diet without alcohol. All animals were given their respective diets daily for about four weeks.........

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October 26, 2006, 5:14 AM CT

3-D monitor vision test for children

A new random-dot stereotest using a 3D display and infrared oculography has been found to objectively assess stereopsis in children older than three years as per an article reported in the November 2006 issue of Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science (IOVS).

The study involved 56 children, 38 with various visual impairments and 18 with normal vision. Study participants were seated on their mother's lap or alone with their heads stabilized by a chin and front rest. Unlike many other tests, this new 3D monitor stereotest does not require disassociating glasses that children often find cumbersome. The random dot stimulus was presented on an autostereoscopic display which allows viewing of full-color 3D images. The stimulus recognition was objectively assessed using infrared photo-oculography. The overall accuracy of the test was found to be 95 percent.

If applicable to preverbal children, the new test may permit study of the development of stereovision under natural conditions since no glasses are necessary to see the stimuli. The new test may be useful for the objective measurement of the sensory outcome following the therapy of ophthalmic disorders in the pediatric age group. It is also a potential substitute for the Lang I and II Test and the Radom-dot E Test, which require verbal capabilities from the subject tested.........

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October 26, 2006, 5:08 AM CT

Insight Into Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

New research into Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is leading to a better understanding of its underlying neurobiology, risk factors and long-term implications. The findings appear in a recent issue of Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences and were revealed at a conference jointly sponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Scientists are studying many previously unexplored topics, including an examination of trauma within hours of the event, the thought processes that keep sufferers focused on the trauma and possibilities for prevention and treatment. New and promising research is engaged with mapping the neural circuitry involved in response to danger and with investigations of the complex genetics of individual risk.

Eventhough the NIMH was created 60 years ago partly in response to an increased awareness of the psychological consequences of war, little PTSD research had been done before the Vietnam War. Since that time, PTSD has been found in veterans dating back to World War II. Eventhough PTSD appears at a high rate among veterans, the condition is also seen in the civilian population: the events of 9/11 have increased the urgency of finding answers.

A study of the general population observed that PTSD affects 5% of men and 10% of women. Studies also show a greater likelihood of PTSD development in the children of trauma survivors, including data on babies born to women who were pregnant and escaped from the World Trade Center on September 11 suggesting in utero and other developmental effects.........

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October 26, 2006, 4:47 AM CT

World's Most Intense Thunderstorms

A summer thunderstorm often provides much-needed rainfall and heat wave relief, but others bring large hail, destructive winds, and tornadoes. Now with the help of NASA satellite data, scientists are gaining insight into the distribution of such storms around much of the world.

By using data from the NASA Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, researchers identified the regions on Earth that experience the most intense thunderstorms. Their study was published in the August 2006 issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The strongest storms were found to occur east of the Andes Mountains in Argentina, where warm, humid air often collides with cooler, drier air, similar to storms that form east of the Rockies in the United States. Surprisingly, some semi-arid regions have powerful storms, including the southern fringes of the Sahara, northern Australia, and parts of the Indian subcontinent. In contrast, rainy areas such as western Amazonia and Southeast Asia experience frequent storms, but relatively few are severe. Northern Pakistan, Bangladesh, and parts of Central Africa also experience intense thunderstorms.

"TRMM has given us the ability to extend local knowledge about storms to a near-global reach," said lead author Edward Zipser, University of Utah, Salt Lake City. "In addition to containing the only precipitation radar in space, TRMM's other instruments provide a powerful overlap of data that is extremely useful for studying storms".........

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October 26, 2006, 4:43 AM CT

Exercise Protects From Colds

A moderate exercise program may reduce the incidence of colds. A study published in the recent issue of The American Journal of Medicine, led by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, found that otherwise sedentary women who engaged in moderate exercise had fewer colds over a one year period than a control group.

Subjects in a group of 115 overweight and obese, sedentary, postmenopausal women were randomly assigned to either a moderate exercise program (45 minutes per day, five days per week and comprised of mostly brisk walking) or to a once-weekly 45 minute stretching session. Both the exercisers and the stretchers filled out questionnaires every 3 months on the number of episodes of allergies, upper respiratory tract infections (colds and flu) and other infections. Subjects were taught how to distinguish various forms of infections and were followed for one year.

Over 12 months, the risk of colds decreased modestly in exercisers and increased modestly in stretchers. In the final three months of the study, the risk of colds in stretchers was more than 3-fold higher than that of exercisers. More stretchers than exercisers had at least one cold during the 12-month study period (48.4% vs 30.2%), and among women reporting at least one cold, stretchers tended to report colds more frequently than exercisers.........

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October 25, 2006, 4:49 AM CT

Twins More Likely To Have Premature Menopause

Twins are more likely to have a premature menopause than other women, as per research published on line today (Wednesday 25 October) in Europe's leading reproductive medicine journal, Human Reproduction[1].

In a study of more than 800 Australian and UK twin pairs, lead by Dr Roger Gosden, Professor of Reproductive Biology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York, premature ovarian failure was between three and five times greater when measured at age 40 and age 45 than in the general population. Ovarian failure before the age of 40 normally affects only around one woman in a hundred.

The finding applied whether or not the twins were identical (monozygotic) or non-identical (dizygotic). It confirms tentative prior data on premature ovarian failure (POF) in non-identical twins, but it is the first time it has been established in identical twins as well.

However, there were twins in the study where the menopausal ages were very different - a disparity of more than 20 years in a few cases. It was disparity in menopausal ages among twins that led to this study. First, it was prompted by the recent case of ovarian transplantation between 24-year-old identical twins at the Infertility Center in St. Louis carried out by this study's co-author Dr Sherman Silber. One twin had undergone unexplained POF at age 14, but this was reversed through ovarian tissue transplantation from her sister, and she later conceived. Subsequently, several more identical twin pairs came forward for possible therapy and the scientists received anecdotal information about other cases of disparity in menopausal ages among twins.........

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October 24, 2006, 8:32 PM CT

Direct Proof Of Stellar Sorting In A Globular Cluster

A seven year study with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has provided astronomers with the best observational evidence yet that globular clusters sort out stars as per their mass, governed by a gravitational billiard ball game between stars. Heavier stars slow down and sink to the cluster's core, while lighter stars pick up speed and move across the cluster to its periphery. This process, called "mass segregation", has long been suspected for globular star clusters, but has never before been directly seen in action.

Imagine trying to understand how a football game works based on just a few fuzzy snapshots of the game in play. This is the just the kind of challenge faced by astronomers trying to understand the dynamics of the swarm of stars in the globular star clusters that orbit our Milky Way Galaxy. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has provided the best observational evidence to date that globular clusters sort stars as per their mass, governed by a gravitational billiard ball game between stars. Heavier stars slow down and sink to the cluster's core, while lighter stars pick up speed and move out across the cluster to its periphery. This process, called mass segregation, has long been suspected for globular star clusters, but has never been seen in action directly before.........

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