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The Yale Alumni Magazine is owned and operated by Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation independent of Yale University. The content of the magazine and its website is the responsibility of the editors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yale or its officers. |
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When mentally troubled people hear meaning in noise that sounds meaningless to others, they may be exhibiting an early warning sign of schizophrenia, according to researchers at the School of Medicine. Ralph Hoffman, a professor of psychiatry, and his colleagues studied 43 individuals who showed preliminary indications of psychosis. During the research, some received an anti-psychotic medication, others a placebo. Building on studies linking schizophrenia and speech processing, the researchers asked each participant to listen to two-and-a-half minutes of prerecorded babble: six speakers reading overlapping texts. As they listened, the participants were to repeat any words or phrases they could make out. (The study appeared in October in the British Journal of Psychiatry.) In the mingled voices, the participants consistently identified only four individual words correctly. (They were “children,” “A-OK,” “Republican,” and “increase.”) But a number of the subjects also thought they heard phrases of two or more words. “We don’t think that what they were 'hearing' had to do with anything that was actually being said,” says Hoffman. “Rather, the babble produced an abnormal brain activation, and each person’s perceptions were different.” Hoffman’s team followed participants for up to two years and found that 80 percent who had “heard” phrases consisting of at least four words developed symptoms of schizophrenia during times when they were not taking anti-psychotic drugs. In contrast, only 6 percent of participants who “heard” phrases consisting of three words or fewer developed symptoms when not taking the drugs. If the findings are confirmed by further research, this kind of “speech illusion” assessment could provide a simple, inexpensive way to identify people who might benefit from drug therapy to prevent schizophrenia. And although the study sample was small, Hoffman adds, the results also suggest something profound about the brains of those at risk for the disease: they “may be programmed to seek meaning when no meaning is there.”
Driver’s
Ed for the Elderly People over 70 have a higher per-mile crash rate than any age group in this country except teenagers. Moreover, the number of older drivers is projected to increase 50 percent between 1990 and 2020. That creates “a demographic imperative” to address the safety problem, says Associate Professor of Medicine Richard Marottoli '80, '84MD, '91MPH. He and his colleagues set out to see whether elderly drivers at risk of accidents can learn to be safer—and avoid the devastating impact that losing the ability to drive can have on the elderly. Marottoli, medical director of the Dorothy Adler Geriatric Assessment Center at Yale–New Haven Hospital, says he is often asked whether a senior can continue driving, but “we didn’t have very good data to decide.” Marottoli and his colleagues recruited local drivers aged 70 and up and screened out the best and worst. Volunteers then received eight hours of classroom instruction and two hours behind the wheel, focusing on common problems of older drivers: left turns, lane changes, maintaining speed. A control group learned about vehicle maintenance and home safety. Then the participants were tested again. Those who'd been to older-drivers' ed improved their driving performance by an average of 2.87 points on a 72-point scale. Marottoli estimates that the 2.87 points might represent a 9.5 percent decrease in crash risk. (The study appeared in the October 2007 Journal of Gerontology.) “The tricky question,” Marottoli notes, “is how do you translate that into the real world?” He hopes future research will pinpoint the most effective techniques and expand them to larger groups.
“Party” At election time, political organizations and candidates inundate voters with appeals. Yet typical turnout rates remain woefully low. A recent study suggests that turning Election Day into a party might give turnout a slight boost. In the nineteenth century, voter turnout regularly topped 70 percent—despite the long horse-and-buggy journeys many people faced. But voters arrived expecting to do more than just cast their ballots. According to Yale political scientist Donald P. Green, an authority on voter turnout, Election Day was a festival in which voters enjoyed “booze, music, and raucous activities that went on all day.” But Progressive Era reforms, which introduced the secret ballot and curtailed vote buying, also succeeded in banishing the fun. Voting now takes place, says Green, in “a morgue-like atmosphere.” Could reconnecting Election Day to fun—legal, of course—increase turnout? In 2005 and 2006, Green and colleagues threw Election Day parties, with free music, food, and (nonalcoholic) drinks, near polling stations in 14 randomly selected precincts. For controls, Green chose precincts nearby that had comparable demographics and political issues. The “Election Day Festivals” were well publicized. On voting day, Green recalls, “The sounds of music and smell of barbeque wafted through the neighborhood and attracted people.” All partygoers were encouraged to vote. The results, published in October in the journal PS: Political Science & Politics, showed that for hot electoral races, the festivals increased expected turnout by nearly 10 percent. The average increase was only 2.5 percent—but costly direct mail and telephone campaigns typically aim to raise turnout by less than 1 percent. “To throw a party for a couple thousand dollars and boost turnout by that much is a bargain,” says Green.
The Silent Killer An aneurysm is a swelling in a blood vessel where the wall thins and balloons out. If it swells too much, it will rupture. When the aneurysm is in the aorta, the large artery that carries blood from the heart to the rest of the body, a rupture usually means death. Aortic aneurysms claim the lives of more than 15,000 people in the United States annually, largely because “95 percent of the time, there are no advance symptoms,” says John Elefteriades '72, '76MD, professor of cardiothoracic surgery at the medical school. When an aneurysm is discovered in time, it’s most often “incidentally, when a person is being examined for a different reason.” But Elefteriades and colleagues at Yale and two California companies are developing a simple blood test to identify these time bombs before they explode. By analyzing blood from 58 patients with thoracic aortic aneurysms (TAA) and comparing it with blood from the patients' spouses (whose aortas were normal), they discovered key genetic and blood chemistry differences between the two groups. The test they designed was about 80 percent accurate in its first trial (described in the October issue of the journal PLoS One). Further trials are now underway, and if they work, Elefteriades plans to start a large-scale trial immediately. Since aortic aneurysms tend to run in families, he says, “my hope is that we'd sample family members first, and then eventually be able to use it as a general screening test, like the PSA for prostate cancer.” Those who test positive can receive regular echocardiograms to confirm the diagnosis and track changes in aortal width. Preemptive surgical repair can often prevent
disaster. |
Question Authority Children learn by imitating adults. A study by psychology graduate student Derek Lyons indicates that this behavior may, for good or ill, be hardwired. Lyons and colleagues presented three- to five-year-old children with several easy puzzle boxes—and an adult who suggested nonsensical ways to solve them. The kids quickly learned that grown-ups could be unreliable and ignored the hints. But when the puzzles got tougher, the children started following instructions rigorously—even though they had been told to avoid any nonsense steps. Advised to rotate the wire cage at left 180 degrees before retrieving a turtle from the blue-and-white container, many children did so (even when the adult had left the room). “Imitation is a remarkably potent learning strategy,” writes Lyons in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (December 11), but it can be “too potent.” He adds: use “caution the next time you fidget with a complex device. You never know who might be watching.” |
Noted Psychology professor Julia Kim-Cohen and her colleagues have found that breast-feeding can raise a child’s IQ by 6 to 7 points. But there’s a catch. The only children who show this benefit are those with a genetic variant that enhances the metabolism of breast milk. Breast-fed babies without the variant (and those reared solely on formula) did not receive the IQ boost. The study appeared in November in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science Early Edition. Your initials may be affecting you in ways that would surprise you. In a December Psychological Science study, marketing professor Joseph P. Simmons and a colleague showed that major league hitters whose first or last name began with K—baseball shorthand for strikeout—struck out 18.8 percent of the time; non-K players did so at a rate of 17.2 percent. Students whose initials included an A or B made better grades than those with initials of C or D. The reason? An “unconscious mechanism” that “sabotages success for people whose initials match negative performance labels,” the researchers write. Neurobiologist Charles Greer and graduate student Mary Whitman have discovered how long it takes certain kinds of nerve cells to learn to communicate. They established that new neurons formed in adults must listen to signals from other regions of the brain for a significant period before they can transmit signals of their own. The information prevents the new cells from disrupting existing networks. The finding was published in the October Journal of Neuroscience. In the November issue of Psychological Science, graduate student Louisa Egan and her colleagues showed that both young children and capuchin monkeys appear to experience cognitive dissonance. The children were asked to choose among equally liked stickers, the monkeys from equally liked colors of M&Ms. After the subjects made their choices, the objects not chosen subsequently lost their attraction—evidently resolving the discomfort of making a tough decision. Hal Blumenfeld, associate professor of neurology, and his colleagues may have found a way to prevent epilepsy from occurring. The researchers studied a breed of laboratory rat genetically susceptible to developing seizures. The Blumenfeld team discovered that when these rats were fed ethosuximide, an anticonvulsant medication, from shortly after birth until they were five months old, their seizures remained suppressed even several months after the medication was stopped. The work, he writes in the December 7 early online edition of Epilepsia, “hopefully represent[s] an important initial step towards not just treating the symptoms of epilepsy, but curing the disease.” |
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