Apple under `A,’ beet under `B’ …

            BOSTON - Newswise noted: socks in sock drawer, shirts in shirt drawer, the time-honored lesson of organizing clothes learned in youth. What brain parts encode such categories, and how does such learning occur? Harvard Medical School (HMS) investigators identified an area of the brain where such memories are found. They report online at Nature they found the activity of neurons in the parietal cortex encode the category, or meaning, of familiar visual images and brain activity patterns changed dramatically as a result of learning. They suggest categories are encoded by individual brain cells and the parietal cortex is a part of the brain circuitry that learns and recognizes the meaning of the things we see. “It was previously unknown that parietal cortex activity would show such dramatic changes [from] learning new categories,” says lead author Dr. David Freedman, HMS postdoctoral research fellow in neurobiology. “Some areas of the brain, particularly the frontal and temporal lobes, have been associated with visual categorization. Since these brain areas are all interconnected, an important next step will be to determine their relative roles in categorization.” We aren’t born with an ability to recognize categories like table, chair, and camera. Most categories such as these are learned through experience. Categories are a cornerstone of complex behavior, because they give meaning to the sights and sounds around us.

            WASHINGTON - Monday Morning in Washington, DC (www.mmwdc.org) disclosed a majority of preschool classrooms include at least one child with a disability, but teachers are often unprepared to work with these children. A survey of early childhood teacher preparation programs showed even though early intervention and special education are part of many programs' missions, course work and training often fall short. An FPG Child Development Institute “Snapshot” about these findings is at join.buddywalk.org/site/R?i=Iw_7ESf2kRdH2_Ky9Av4ig. To learn more, see this article: Chang, F., Early D., & Winton, P. (2005). Early Childhood Teacher Preparation in Special Education at 2- and 4-Year Institutions of Higher Education. Journal of Early Intervention, 27(2), 110-124.

            ROCHESTER , MN - Newswise noted Mayo Clinic scientists identified a new sleep apnea: “complex sleep apnea,” in the journal Sleep. Two known types of sleep apnea are obstructive sleep apnea (OSP) and central sleep apnea ( CSA ). In the more common OSP, throat muscles relax and the airway narrows, momentarily cutting off breathing and yielding noisy snoring. With CSA , the brain doesn’t send proper signals to muscles that control breathing. The newly-discovered complex sleep apnea is a combination of both OSA and CSA . Patients with complex sleep apnea at first appear to have OSA and stop breathing 20-30 times per hour each night. Unlike typical OSA patients, their breathing problem isn’t completely alleviated by a CPAP (continuous airway pressure) machine, which functions like a pneumatic splint to open a patient’s airway. Instead, once the CPAP is applied to complex sleep apnea patients, the obstruction seems to dissipate, but they don’t breathe properly. Symptoms of central sleep apnea then appear and fragmented sleep results, due to frequent pauses in breathing. “All of us in our sleep lab have observed for years there are patients who appear to have [OSA], but the CPAP doesn’t make them much better - they still have moderate to severe sleep apnea even with our best treatment and subjectively don’t feel they’re doing very well,” says Dr. Timothy Morgenthaler, Mayo Clinic sleep medicine specialist, pulmonologist, and lead study investigator. “When they put on a CPAP, they start to look like central sleep apnea syndrome patients. This study is the first attempt to categorize these people.”

            AMSTERDAM - MedPage Today disclosed when Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients were scanned by proton relaxation MRI , significant brain damage cropped up well beyond lesions detected by standard proton density MRI , investigators reported. Application of the proton relaxation MRI revealed damage in normal appearing white and gray matter, with substantial clinical impact, said Dr. Hugo Vrenken, of VU University, and colleagues, in Radiology. Not only were large fractions of brain tissue affected that were seemingly normal by standard proton density MRI , but the results were most pronounced in patients with secondary progressive MS, investigators found. MS plaques are areas of demyelination that are easily seen on proton density MRI , a technique that creates an image by alignment of protons in tissues against the magnetic field. By relaxation, MRI also uses radio frequency field pulses to change the alignment of tissue protons and then measure how fast the protons relax to their original state.

            NASHVILLE , TN - MedPage Today noted a glass of fruit or vegetable juice every other day may help fend off Alzheimer's disease, a study of older Japanese-Americans suggested. Against those who averaged less than one glass of juice per week, those who drank three or more were 76% less likely to develop Alzheimer's, said Dr. Qi Dai, of the Vanderbilt School of Medicine. "These findings are new and suggest fruit and vegetable juices may play an important role in delaying onset of Alzheimer's," Dr. Dai and colleagues wrote in the American Journal of Medicine. Studies of antioxidant vitamins to avoid Alzheimer's have been disappointing, despite initial promise of the vitamins, investigators said. This study explored fruit and vegetable juices, which are an abundant source of polyphenols, they said. Polyphenols are usually found in the skin and peel of fruits and vegetables. Previous research has shown when fruits and vegetables are squeezed mechanically to make juice, high concentrations of polyphenols from the peel and pulp get into the juice, investigators said. Although this study didn’t identify the juices participants drank, studies have shown apple, grape, and citrus juices are high in polyphenols, they added. Alzheimer's is relatively uncommon in Japan , but its prevalence has been rising in Japanese-Americans, noting environmental and lifestyle factors may be at play, investigators said.