Understanding the structure, function, and development of the brain in health and disease represents one of the great scientific challenges of our time. The emerging field of neuroinformatics integrates neuroscience with informatics to create unique databases and analytical tools for the large variety of neuroscience data types, applying them to brain research and linking them with databases within neuroscience and other fields such as genomics and proteomics. "Databasing the Brain: From Data to Knowledge (Neuroinformatics)" (Wiley; February 2005; $135.00; Paper; 0-471-30921-4) is the first book to comprehensively cover neuroinformatics, from relevant computational science and modeling issues to its diverse applications.

Using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) for the first time to examine energy production biochemistry in a beating human heart, Johns Hopkins researchers have found substantial energy deficits in failing hearts.

The findings, published in the January 18 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, confirm what many scientists have conjectured for years about heart failure, and suggest new treatments designed to reduce energy demand and/or augment energy transfer.

The phenomenon of sexual conflict is a powerful driving force in the evolution of reproductive biology for many animal species. Males often try to manipulate their female mates during copulation--for example, by traumatic inseminations (as in the case of bed bugs) or by the transfer of toxic seminal fluids (as in the case of the fruitfly Drosophila). These manipulations are beneficial to males because, for example, they reduce female re-mating probability or boost their fecundity directly after mating, but they can be very harmful to females, whose lifespan and future reproductive output can be drastically reduced. New findings suggest that in some social insects--in which both sexes ultimately benefit from long, successful reproductive lives of females--sexual cooperation, rather than sexual conflict, may be favored.

The International HapMap Consortium, boosted by an additional $3.3 million in public-private support, today announced plans to create an even more powerful map of human genetic variation than originally envisioned. The map will accelerate the discovery of genes related to common diseases, such as asthma, cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

When the project was launched in October 2002, the consortium set September 2005 as the target for completing its map of common patterns of human genetic variation, also known as haplotypes. By the end of February 2005, however, the group already will have reached completion of its first draft of the human haplotype map, or HapMap, which will consist of 1 million markers of genetic variation, called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).

Lower bone density appears to recover in adolescent females once they stop using the injected contraceptive depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA), according to a study funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health.

Previous studies had shown that women who use DMPA, marketed under the brand name Depo-Provera, experience a loss of bone mineral density during the time they are using the contraceptive. Because women are developing a large amount of their bone mass from ages 15 to 19, researchers were concerned that DMPA use might place adolescents at higher risk for bone fracture or osteoporosis later in life.

Variation in a taste receptor gene influences taste sensitivity of children and adults, accounting for individual differences in taste preferences and food selection, report a team of researchers from the Monell Chemical Senses Center. In addition to genes, age and culture also contribute to taste preferences, at times overriding the influence of genetics.

The findings may help to explain why some children are more attracted to sweet-tasting foods, as well as why taste and food preferences appear to change with age.

Researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and the Columbia Genome Center have designed and developed a sensitive new diagnostic technology platform, called “Mass Tag PCR,” that can simultaneously screen for multiple infectious agents. The new technology is addressed in a paper published in the February issue of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Emerging Infectious Diseases. This new platform is demonstrated in an assay that detects and discriminates 22 pathogens including viruses and bacteria that can present as clinically similar pulmonary disease.

Underscoring the value of good prenatal care, new research suggests that early infection may create a cognitive vulnerability that appears later during stress on the immune system. Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder have reported that rats who experienced a one-time infection as newborns didn't learn as well as adult rats who were not infected as pups, after their immunity was challenged. The research is in February's Behavioral Neuroscience, published by the American Psychological Association (APA).

The findings fit into a growing body of evidence that even a one-time infection can potentially permanently change physiological systems, a phenomenon called "perinatal programming."

Children who suffer from acute asthma attacks share a genetic profile that appears to be unique to these children, according to a new study by researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. The discovery opens the door to the possibility of designing treatments specifically tailored to children who suffer from the severest forms of asthma.

The findings appear in the Feb. 10 issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

The study is based on an Affymetrix "GeneChip" analysis of RNA isolated from the nasal epithelium of children who have an acute case of asthma or asthma stabilized with medication. The analysis revealed two distinct gene expression profiles in these groups of children, according to Gurjit K. Khurana Hershey, MD, PhD, director of the Center for Translational Research in Asthma and Allergy at Cincinnati Children's and senior author of the study.