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Issue 104

October 2009

If you report a story, we ask that you credit Elsevier’s journal as the source.

Welcome to the 104th edition of Flash, our bi-weekly alert for science, health and medical journalists. Flash is a courtesy service with access to ScienceDirect, Elsevier’s online platform, providing full text access to some 2,000 scientific, technical and medical journals.

Please use your Flash login and password to access each article’s full text on ScienceDirect. For a new password, forgotten passwords or if you have any feedback, please contact Anna Hogrebe at newsroom@elsevier.com or at +31 20 485 3269.

ARTICLES

1. A NEW EXPLANATION FOR AGGRESSIVE DOGS

Does your dog always look like it’s ready to viciously attack? Does it snarl or bite? Canine aggression directed toward humans is the most common problem currently being presented at referral behavioural practices. But why?

In Elsevier’s The Veterinary Journal, a new study investigates the relationship between serotonin (5-HT) transporter (5-HTT) activity in platelets and canine aggression by measuring the rate of 5-HT uptake mediated by 5-HTT in platelets and serum concentrations of 5-HT in both aggressive and non-aggressive dogs. There has been particular emphasis on the study of the relation between the 5-HTT and mental disorders in humans, and 5-HTT mediates the re-uptake of 5-HT in the brain. This canine study focuses on 14 aggressive dogs (seven males and seven females) with a control group of 17 healthy dogs (seven males and 10 females).

Based on the researchers findings, results suggest a possible association between canine aggression and an alteration in the serotonergic system, mediated by an increase of 5-HTT activity in platelets and a decrease of serum concentrations of 5-HT. The determination of platelet 5-HT uptake in aggressive dogs may have important applications for veterinary behavioural medicine and for research into the biological basis of aggression.”

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2. GASTROPROTECTIVE CONSTITUENTS OF SAGE

S. officinalis, popularly known as sage, has been extensively used in cooking and also as a medicinal plant due to its traditionally-described actions such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and the treatment of gastric disturbances.

Building upon its use, a new study featured in Elsevier’s Fitoterapia evaluates the antiulcerogenic activity of the hydroalcoholic extract (HE) of S. officinalis L. and the mechanisms involved. Using female Wistar rats, researchers induced gastric lesions. In one group of the rats, omeprazole or HE was orally administered for seven consecutive days, twice a day, starting seven days after the surgery.

Results revealed an oral administration of HE, delivered one hour before the induction of gastric lesions via 80 percent ethanol, decreased the area of the lesions. These findings show that HE accelerated the healing of the chronic ulcers, with an effect similar to that of the positive control omeprazole. These results illustrate the extract of S. officinalis, HE, has a gastroprotective activity, which seems to result from the high free-radical scavenger potential and, with minor participation, from inhibition of the H+,K+-ATPase.

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3. MEN AND WOMEN NOT CREATED EQUALLY WHEN IT COMES TO DEALING WITH PAIN

Pain is the main reason people seek medical treatment, but are men and women created equally when it comes to dealing with pain? For example, more women than men tend to suffer from migraines, rheumatoid arthritis, and irritable bowel syndrome.

To learn more about these differences, Elsevier’s Maturitas provides an overview of musculoskeletal pain conditions that exhibit pronounced sex-related differences in their prevalence and discuss biological mechanisms that may contribute to these differences. Temporomandibular disorders (TMD), fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS), rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and headaches are explored, as well as the role various sex hormones play.

Research suggests two major sex hormones – estrogen and testosterone – may be the reason why. Specifically, men may be at lower risk than women for the development of musculoskeletal pains due to the protective effect of testosterone in combination with relatively low estrogen levels. Additionally, the analgesic effects of certain pain medications may differ in men and women. By having a better understanding of these differences, improved pain management strategies can be developed to benefit both male and female patients.

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4. ADOLESCENTS WEIGH IN ON FACE AND VOICE ATTRACTIVENESS

Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Daniel Craig, Kate Moss. As adults, we start to form very specific tastes in terms of who we deem as attractive. Maybe it’s broad shoulders, a square jaw and deep voice for men, and for women, perhaps we’re attracted to slight features, a higher voice and curves. Of course everyone has their preferences, but usually there are similarities in terms of what we see as attractive traits. The question is at what age do we begin to develop these preferences?

In Elsevier’s new Evolution and Human Behavior, researchers examine how adolescents, aged 11 to 15, rate faces and voices in terms of attractiveness. Facial stimuli consisted of pairs of faces that were more or less average, more or less feminine, or more or less symmetric. Voice stimuli consisted of pairs of voices manipulated to raise or lower perceived pitch.

Overall, children selected the average, symmetric and feminine versions of the male and female faces to be the more attractive. Children only rated opposite-sex voices, with boys tending to choose higher-pitched over lower-pitched girls’ voices and girls choosing lower-pitched over higher-pitched boys’ voices. The researchers also discovered some evidence for independent effects of age and pubertal development on attractiveness judgements. For example, increased pubertal development was associated with increased selection of lower-pitched boys’ voices by girls and decreased selection of feminised male faces by boys.

These results are the first to demonstrate that adolescents show similar attractiveness judgements to adults in age-matched stimuli, and that age, sex and pubertal development all have measurable effects on adolescents’ attractiveness judgements.

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The Scirus tool bar makes it easier than ever to find scientific, technical and medical information on the Web and is quick and easy to install. After installing, the Scirus toolbar conveniently appears below your Internet Explorer address bar, meaning you have scientific searches at your fingertips, wherever you are on the Web. Link to Scirus: http://www.scirus.com/srsapp/toolbar/ If your browser does not support HTML, you may need to copy the links below and paste them into your browser to access the articles:

1. doi:10.1016/j.tvjl.2009.07.029
2. doi:10.1016/j.fitote.2009.05.015
3. doi:10.1016/j.maturitas.2009.06.004
4. doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2009.06.004