http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=dopami...tivation-reward
'Researchers have for the first time found that the neurotransmitter dopamine is central to the human brain network governing motivation and a sense of reward and pleasure—and that it changes with age. The finding could provide clues to healthy, happy aging and pave the way to new treatments for neurological disorders, including Parkinson's disease and schizophrenia as well as addictive behaviors from alcoholism and drug abuse to comp
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=novel-...t-attack-damage
'An alcohol-busting enzyme may help prevent heart attack damage, according to a new study in Science. Researchers report that aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2), an enzyme important for processing alcohol in the human body, clears harmful toxins produced in cells when blood flow is blocked in the heart—and a new drug can switch it on.
Red wine has long been toted as a preventive measure against cardiac disease. In fact, heart cells exp
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/...80908103045.htm
'Substances in marijuana show promise for fighting deadly drug-resistant bacterial infections, including so-called "superbugs," without causing the drug's mood-altering effects, scientists in Italy and the United Kingdom are reporting.
Besides serving as infection-fighting drugs, the substances also could provide a more environmentally-friendly alternative to synthetic antibacterial substances now widely used in personal care items,
Following the dicussion with Mindexpansion, JDanger, Vertemorphous etc, here is the start of my collection of relevant research. This will be transferred to a thread shortly, and (if I had my way), would be avalable through the eventual (possible) website set up to provide advocacy and information to defend ethnobotanical cultivation and practices. Note that due to my university web access most of these links won't work, so you may have to use the citation provided and find a copy yourself. Enjo
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/wenn/20080706/ten...-c60bd6d_1.html
‘Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane has vowed to stop smoking marijuana - because it makes him too paranoid.
MacFarlane signed a GBP50 million deal with 20th Century Fox in May, in a move which will make him the highest-paid writer-producer in television - and he’s determined to increase his productivity by swearing off illegal drugs.
He says, “I don’t smoke much pot anymore. One of the last times I was stoned, I was convinced that
http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?i...C35C&sc=rss
'In the insect world, bright reds, oranges and yellows can be a warning: “Eat me at your own risk, pal.” Because colorful bugs can be toxic, they often get their chemical protection from nibbling poisonous plants. But these poisons can have a flip side for us—some fight cancer or tropical parasites that cause diseases like malaria.
The idea that colorful bugs can tip us off to disease-fighting plants isn’t new. But researchers at the
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=fear-f...mine&sc=rss
'A brain chemical linked to pleasure and depression may also trigger fear, according to a new study. Researchers say this may explain why the neurotransmitter dopamine, known to cause addictive behavior, may also play a role in anxiety disorders.
"Showing that dopamine can enhance both approach and avoidance behaviors is an important finding," says Howard Fields, a neurobiologist at the University of California, San Francisco. Approa
http://blog.aclu.org/2008/07/12/strip-sear...constitutional/
‘If you have a problem with school officials strip searching 13-year-olds for Advil – or if you care about the government’s standards for informant use and invasive searches – you can take relief in yesterday’s ruling by a full panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which ruled 6-5 that students cannot be strip-searched based on the uncorroborated word of another student who is facing disciplinary punishment.
“A reas
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/...80707161437.htm
'A combination drug taken within an hour after the start of a migraine is effective in relieving symptoms, according to research published in the July 8, 2008, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
The drug combines sumatriptan, a migraine-specific drug that affects the constriction of blood vessels, with naproxen sodium, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug that works on the inflammatory as
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnough...oddlyEnoughNews
'Police have detained two custodians who were about to harvest their first crop of cannabis, a source of drugs like hashish and marijuana, from a cemetery in Vietnam's capital, a state-run newspaper reported on Monday.
Police took in Nguyen Manh Hung, 44, who heads the caretaker team at the cemetery in Hanoi's outer district of Hoang Mai, and Ho A Lau, 46, after the authorities found cannabis plants grown on a 25 square meter (82 squ
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/...80703145849.htm
'Letting your imagination run away with you may actually influence how you see the world. New research from Vanderbilt University has found that mental imagery—what we see with the "mind's eye"—directly impacts our visual perception.
"We found that imagery leads to a short-term memory trace that can bias future perception," says Joel Pearson, research associate in the Vanderbilt Department of Psychology. and lead author of the study.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=long-t...ooms&sc=rss
'People who took magic mushrooms were still feeling the love more than a year later, and one might say they were on cloud nine about it, scientists report in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
"Most of the volunteers looked back on their experience up to 14 months later and rated it as the most, or one of the five most, personally meaningful and spiritually significant of their lives," comparing it with the birth of a child or the de
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnough...oddlyEnoughNews
'A sharp increase in drugs and cellphones found inside a Brazilian prison mystified officials -- until guards spotted some distressed pigeons struggling to stay airborne.
Inmates at the prison in Marilia, Sao Paulo state had been training carrier pigeons to smuggle in goods using cell phone sized pouches on their backs, a low-tech but ingenious way of skipping the high-tech security that visitors faced.
"We have sophisticated equipm
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=genera...leep&sc=rss
'Researchers studying the effects of general anesthesia recently made a startling discovery: the drugs used to knock out patients during surgery may lead to increased pain when they wake up.
Doctors have known for decades that most general anesthetics may cause a temporary burning sensation when administered or swelling around the injection site. Similarly, inhaled agents can cause momentary coughing bouts, according to Gerard Ahern,
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnough...oddlyEnoughNews
'Drug traffickers in China's far west are smuggling heroin into the country woven into carpets imported from Afghanistan and Pakistan, state media said on Tuesday.
Customs officials in Xinjiang, which borders both countries, have seized more than 30 carpets containing some 50 kg (110 lb) of heroin in the last several months, the official China Daily said.
"The traffickers have become more sophisticated and are using new techniques,"
In searching for NMDA antagonists in nature, I came across this species. Research on it seems quite new (relatively).
Planta Medica 2000; 66: 770-772
"Antinociceptive Profile of Hodgkinsine"
To further understand the mechanism of analgesic activity and structural requirements of pyrrolidinoindoline alkaloids identified in Psychotria colorata, we here report the analgesic activity of the trimer hodgkinsine on thermal and chemical models of analgesia. Results show that hodgkinsine produces a
http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_B...-07/06-144.html
‘Morphine, as little as a single dose, blocks the brain’s ability to strengthen connections at inhibitory synapses, according to new Brown University research published in Nature.
The findings, uncovered in the laboratory of Brown scientist Julie Kauer, may help explain the origins of addiction in the brain. The research also supports a provocative new theory of addiction as a disease of learning and memory.
“We’ve added a new piece
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/200...mp;topic=latest
‘Australian researchers have found that long-term heavy use of marijuana may cause parts of the brain to shrink.
Published in this month’s Archives of General Psychiatry, the study found that the hippocampus and amygdala were smaller in men who were heavy marijuana users compared to non-users.
The study looked at 15 men heavy marijuana users, who had smoked at least five marijuana cigarettes daily for on average of 20 years.
Brain
Polygala tenuifolia - Chinese Senega, Yuan Zhi
The methanol fraction of an ethanolic extract from the roots of Polygala tenuifolia Willd. showed antagonistic action on neurotoxicity induced by glutamate and serum deficiency in PC12 cells. Bioassay-guided fractionation led to the isolation of six new triterpenoid saponins, onjisaponins V - Z, and Vg (1 - 6), together with ten known saponins (7 - 16). The structures of 1 - 6 were elucidated by spectroscopic and chemical methods. Screening result
