Combating mood disorders
September 30, 2011
Psychiatric ailments such as depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder or anxiety states are often associated with disturbances in the metabolism of the neurotransmitter serotonin. Neurotransmitters are compounds that are released from the synapses at nerve cell endings and activate the firing of neighboring neurons. Thus, as their name suggests, they mediate the transmission of nerve impulses. The serotonin transporter (SERT) is responsible for reuptake of the transmitter into neurons, terminating its action. SERT is a major target for drugs that are used to treat many mood disorders, and the search for new SERT inhibitors is of continuing therapeutic relevance. A research team led by Professor Klaus Wanner of the Department of Pharmacy in the Center for Pharmaceutical Research at Ludwig-Maximilians Univeristät München (LMU) has now developed a novel binding assay, based on the use of mass spectrometry (MS), which promises to simplify the search for potential SERT inhibitors very significantly. The major advantage of the technique is that, unlike conventional binding assays, it avoids the need to use radiolabeled substances. A paper that describes the new assay will appear in the journal ChemMedChem on 4. October. The article has been rated as a “very important paper” and is featured on the cover of the upcoming issue of the journal.
To be effective, most drugs must bind selectively to defined molecular targets in the body. The target may be an enzyme found in certain cells or a protein on the plasma membrane of a specific cell type. Drug candidates must therefore be assessed for their affinity for the target by means of binding assays. These assays often involve the use of a chemical that is already known to recognize and bind selectively to the target as. The ability of a test substance to find and interact with the target is then measured in terms of how well it competes with this “marker” ligand. The greater its ability to displace the marker from the binding site, the higher is its own affinity for the target, and the more likely it is to be clinically effective. In the MS-based binding assay developed by Wanner’s group, quantification of the marker is carried out using mass spectrometry. In contrast to conventional techniques, which employ radiolabeled ligands, MS binding assays do not require the use of markers containing radioactive isotopes. This means that the marker can be assayed in its unaltered, native state. “This label-free technique provides all the advantages offered by classical binding studies, while avoiding the need to work with radioactive compounds,” explains Wanner. His team has now validated the MS-based binding assay for use in the search for new inhibitors of SERT function. “Because SERT regulates the concentration of serotonin in the synaptic cleft, the protein serves as the major target for the treatment of depression, obsessive-compulsive disorders and anxiety states,” says Wanner. Using the well-known antidepressant (S)-fluoxetine as a native marker, his group has now shown that the results of the MS-based assay are in very good agreement with those obtained using radiolabeled ligands. Indeed, the team now routinely uses the MS method to screen for novel, pharmacologically active SERT inhibitors. In addition, Wanner has plans to adapt the approach for use with other target molecules of clinical interest. (göd/PH)
Publication:
(S)- and (R)-Fluoxetine as Native Markers in Mass Spectrometry (MS) Binding Assays Addressing the Serotonin Transporter.
M. Hess, G. Höfner, K. Wanner.
ChemMedChem 2011, vol 6, no. 10, 4. October; First published online 26. July 2011
doi: 10.1002/cmdc.201100251
Contact:
Prof. Klaus T. Wanner
Department of Pharmacy – Center for Pharmaceutical Research (LMU)
Phone: +49 89/2180-77248
Fax: +49 89/2180-77247
Email: wanner.sekretariat@cup.uni-muenchen.de
How your brain reacts to mistakes depends on your mindset
September 30, 2011
“Whether you think you can or think you can’t — you’re right,” said Henry Ford. A new study, to be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that people who think they can learn from their mistakes have a different brain reaction to mistakes than people who think intelligence is fixed.
“One big difference between people who think intelligence is malleable and those who think intelligence is fixed is how they respond to mistakes,” says Jason S. Moser, of Michigan State University, who collaborated on the new study with Hans S. Schroder, Carrie Heeter, Tim P. Moran, and Yu-Hao Lee. Studies have found that people who think intelligence is malleable say things like, “When the going gets tough, I put in more effort,” or “If I make a mistake, I try to learn and figure it out.” On the other hand, people who think that they can’t get smarter will not take opportunities to learn from their mistakes. This can be a problem in school, for example; a student who thinks her intelligence is fixed will think it’s not worth bothering to try harder after she fails a test.
For this study, Moser and his colleagues gave participants a task that is easy to make a mistake on. They were supposed to identify the middle letter of a five-letter series like “MMMMM” or “NNMNN.” Sometimes the middle letter was the same as the other four, and sometimes it was different. “It’s pretty simple, doing the same thing over and over, but the mind can’t help it; it just kind of zones out from time to time,” Moser says. That’s when people make mistakes — and they notice it immediately, and feel stupid.
While doing the task, the participant wore a cap on his or her head that records electrical activity in the brain. When someone makes a mistake, their brain makes two quick signals: an initial response that indicates something has gone awry — Moser calls it the “‘oh crap’ response” — and a second that indicates the person is consciously aware of the mistake and is trying to right the wrong. Both signals occur within a quarter of a second of the mistake. After the experiment, the researchers found out whether people believed they could learn from their mistakes or not.
People who think they can learn from their mistakes did better after making a mistake — in other words, they successfully bounced back after an error. Their brains also reacted differently, producing a bigger second signal, the one that says “I see that I’ve made a mistake, so I should pay more attention,” Moser says.
The research shows that these people are different on a fundamental level, Moser says. “This might help us understand why exactly the two types of individuals show different behaviors after mistakes.” People who think they can learn from their mistakes have brains that are tuned to pay more attention to mistakes, he says. This research could help in training people to believe that they can work harder and learn more, by showing how their brain is reacting to mistakes.
For more information about this study, please contact: Jason S. Moser at jmoser@msu.edu.
The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article “Mind your errors: Evidence for a neural mechanism linking growth mindset to adaptive post-error adjustments” and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Divya Menon at 202-293-9300 or dmenon@psychologicalscience.org.
Baseball’s winning formula
September 29, 2011
Baseball legend Connie Mack famously said pitching is 75 percent of the game. He was wrong — a new analysis by a University of Delaware professor finds it’s just 25 percent.
This October, the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports will feature the article: An Estimate of How Hitting, Pitching, Fielding, and Base-stealing Impact Team Winning Percentages in Baseball. In it, University of Delaware Professor Charles (Charlie) Pavitt defines the perfect “formula” for MLB teams to use to build the ultimate winning team.
Pavitt found hitting accounts for more than 45% of teams’ winning records, fielding for 25% and pitching for 25%. And, the impact of stolen bases is greatly overestimated.
He crunched hitting, pitching, fielding and base-stealing records for every MLB team over a 48-year period from 1951-1998 with a method no other researcher has used in this area. In statistical parlance, he used a conceptual decomposition of offense and defense into its component parts and then analyzed recombinations of the parts in intuitively meaningful ways.
He also found something many MLB teams don’t know: the ability to steal bases is just not that important to the overall winning record of a professional baseball team.
As major league baseball’s playoffs kick off and “Moneyball” plays in movie theatres nationwide, Pavitt is available for interviews.
Contact: Meredith Chapman
mchapman@udel.edu
302-831-8749
University of Delaware
Scientists and engineers create the ‘perfect plastic’
September 29, 2011
Researchers at the University of Leeds and Durham University have solved a long-standing problem that could revolutionize the way new plastics are developed.
The breakthrough will allow experts to create the ‘perfect plastic’ with specific uses and properties by using a high-tech ‘recipe book.’ It will also increase our ability to recycle plastics. The research paper is published in the prestigious journal Science on Thursday.
The paper’s authors form part of the Microscale Polymer Processing project, a collaboration between academics and industry experts which has spent 10 years exploring how to better build giant ‘macromolecules.’ These long tangled molecules are the basic components of plastics and dictate their properties during the melting, flowing and forming processes in plastics production.
Low-density polyethylenes (LDPEs) are used in trays and containers, lightweight car parts, recyclable packaging and electrical goods. Up until now, industry developed a plastic then found a use for it, or tried hundreds of different “recipes” to see which worked. This method could save the manufacturing industry time, energy and money.
The mathematical models used put together two pieces of computer code. The first predicts how polymers will flow based on the connections between the string-like molecules they are made from. A second piece of code predicts the shapes that these molecules will take when they are created at a chemical level. These models were enhanced by experiments on carefully synthesised ‘perfect polymers’ created in labs of the Microscale Polymer Processing project.
Dr. Daniel Read, from the School of Mathematics, University of Leeds, who led the research, said, “Plastics are used by everybody, every day, but until now their production has been effectively guesswork. This breakthrough means that new plastics can be created more efficiently and with a specific use in mind, with benefits to industry and the environment.”
Professor Tom McLeish, formerly of the University of Leeds, now Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research at Durham University leads the Microscale Polymer Processing project. He said, “After years of trying different chemical recipes and finding only a very few provide useable products, this new science provides industry with a toolkit to bring new materials to market faster and more efficiently.”
Professor McLeish added that as plastics production moves from oil-based materials to sustainable and renewable materials, the “trial and error” phase in developing new plastics could now be by-passed. He said, “By changing two or three numbers in the computer code, we can adapt all the predictions for new bio-polymer sources.”
“This is a wonderful outcome of years of work by this extraordinary team. It’s a testimony to the strong collaborative ethos of the UK research groups and global companies involved,” he added.
Dr. Ian Robinson of Lucite International, one of the industrial participants in the wider project said, “The insights offered by this approach are comparable to cracking a plastics ‘DNA.’”
The model was developed by Dr. Daniel Read, School of Mathematics, University of Leeds, Dr. Chinmay Das of the School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Leeds and Professor Tom McLeish, Department of Physics, Durham University. Their predictions were compared to the results of polymer analysis by Dr. Dietmar Auhl, at the time a physicist at Leeds.
The research was carried out at the University of Leeds, Durham University, LyondellBasell and Dow Chemical and was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the European Union.
The Microscale Polymer Processing collaboration includes researchers from the universities of Durham, Bradford, Cambridge, Leeds, Nottingham, Oxford, Reading, Sheffield and University College London alongside their industry counterparts from Lucite International, Ineos, LyondellBasell, BASF, Dow Chemical, DSM, and Mitsubishi.
For more information
Contact:
Richard Mellor
Media Relations Assistant
University of Leeds
T: 0113-343-4196
E: r.mellor@adm.leeds.ac.uk
Durham University Media Relations Office
T: 44-191-334-6075
E: media.relations@durham.ac.uk
Lift weights, eat mustard, build muscles?
September 29, 2011
New research in The FASEB Journal suggests that rats fed homobrassinolide, found in the mustard plant, produced an anabolic effect, and increased appetite and muscle mass, as well as the number and size of muscle fibers.
Bethesda, MD – If you are looking to lean out, add muscle mass, and get ripped, a new research report published in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) suggests that you might want to look to your garden for a little help. That’s because scientists have found that when a specific plant steroid was given orally to rats, it triggered a response similar to anabolic steroids, with minimal side effects. In addition, the research found that the stimulatory effect of homobrassinolide (a type of brassinosteroid found in plants) on protein synthesis in muscle cells led to increases in lean body mass, muscle mass and physical performance.
“We hope that one day brassinosteroids may provide an effective, natural, and safe alternative for age- and disease-associated muscle loss, or be used to improve endurance and physical performance,” said Slavko Komarnytsky, Ph.D., a researcher involved in the work from the Plants for Human Health Institute, FBNS at North Carolina State University in Kannapolis, N.C. “Because some plants we eat contain these compounds, like mustards, in the future we may be able to breed or engineer these plants for higher brassinosteroid content, thus producing functional foods that can treat or prevent diseases and increase physical performance.”
To make this discovery, Komarnytsky and colleagues exposed rat skeletal muscle cells to different amounts of homobrassinolide and measured protein synthesis in cell culture. The result was increased protein synthesis and decreased protein degradation in these cells. Healthy rats then received oral administration of homobrassinolide daily for 24 days. Changes in body weight, food consumption, and body composition were measured. Rats receiving homobrassinolide gained more weight and slightly increased their food intake. Body composition was measured using dual-emission X-ray absorptiometry analysis and showed increased lean body mass in treated animals over those who were not treated. This study was repeated in rats fed high protein diet and similar results were observed. Additionally, researchers used surgically castrated peri-pubertal rat models to examine the ability of homobrassinolide to restore androgen-dependent tissues after androgen deprivation following castration. Results showed increased grip strength and an increase in the number and size of muscle fibers crucial for increased physical performance.
“The temptation is to see this discovery as another quick fix to help you go from fat to fit,” said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, “and to a very small degree, this may be true. In reality, however, this study identifies an important drug target for a wide range of conditions that cause muscle wasting.”
Receive monthly highlights from The FASEB Journal by e-mail. Sign up at http://www.faseb.org/fjupdate.aspx. The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) is published by the Federation of the American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) and celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2011. Over the past quarter century, the journal has been recognized by the Special Libraries Association as one of the top 100 most influential biomedical journals of the past century and is the most cited biology journal worldwide according to the Institute for Scientific Information.
FASEB comprises 24 societies with more than 100,000 members, making it the largest coalition of biomedical research associations in the United States. FASEB enhances the ability of scientists and engineers to improve – through their research – the health, well-being and productivity of all people. FASEB’s mission is to advance health and welfare by promoting progress and education in biological and biomedical sciences through service to our member societies and collaborative advocacy.
Details: Debora Esposito, Slavko Komarnytsky, Sue Shapses, and Ilya Raskin. Anabolic effect of plant brassinosteroid. FASEB J. 2011 25:3708-3719; doi:10.1096/fj.11-181271 ; http://www.fasebj.org/content/25/10/3708.abstract
Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology
Rebuilding the head of an armoured dinosaur
September 29, 2011
A University of Alberta-led research team has taken a rare look inside the skull of a dinosaur and come away with unprecedented details on the brain and nasal passages of the 72 million year old animal.
Lead researcher Tetsuto Miyashita, a U of A master’s student in paleontology, examined the armoured skull of a Euoplocephalus, a six-metre long plant eater. The skull, which had been sitting in the U of A’s paleontology collection, was broken, allowing Miyashita and his colleagues a unique view of the interior nasal cavities and details of blood vessels.
The researchers obtained CT scans from undamaged Euoplocephalus skulls to reconstruct the twisted, looping nasal passages and brain chamber. The team concluded Euoplocephalus had good senses of smell and hearing.
The researchers say the entire brain of a Euoplocephalus would fit inside a coffee mug, but the size was not small for a dinosaur. The dinosaur may have generated sound through its looping nasal passages, enabling it to communicate with other Euoplocephalus. The reconstructed inner ear was tuned for this “nasal roar” because the length of the ear indicates that the dinosaur could pick up low-frequency sounds.
A research paper was written by Miyashita, his U of A colleague Victoria Arbour, Lawrence Witmer from Ohio University and U of A supervisor Philip Currie. The research was published in the Sept. 29 edition of the Journal of Anatomy.
Links to videos showing skull reconstructions of Euoplocephalus. Video supplied by research colleagues at the University of Ohio:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSe0IUQ-FCs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZfvo_xaTT4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwTiJ3clQnU
Single dose of psilocybin may create lasting personality change
September 29, 2011
A single high dose of the hallucinogen psilocybin, the active ingredient in so-called “magic mushrooms,” was enough to bring about a measureable personality change lasting at least a year in nearly 60 percent of the 51 participants in a new study, according to the Johns Hopkins researchers who conducted it.
Lasting change was found in the part of the personality known as openness, which includes traits related to imagination, aesthetics, feelings, abstract ideas and general broad-mindedness. Changes in these traits, measured on a widely used and scientifically validated personality inventory, were larger in magnitude than changes typically observed in healthy adults over decades of life experiences, the scientists say. Researchers in the field say that after the age of 30, personality doesn’t usually change significantly.
“Normally, if anything, openness tends to decrease as people get older,” says study leader Roland R. Griffiths, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
The research, approved by Johns Hopkins’ Institutional Review Board, was funded in part by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
The study participants completed two to five eight-hour drug sessions, with consecutive sessions separated by at least three weeks. Participants were informed they would receive a “moderate or high dose” of psilocybin during one of their drug sessions, but neither they nor the session monitors knew when.
During each session, participants were encouraged to lie down on a couch, use an eye mask to block external visual distraction, wear headphones through which music was played and focus their attention on their inner experiences.
Personality was assessed at screening, one to two months after each drug session and approximately 14 months after the last drug session. Griffiths says he believes the personality changes found in this study are likely permanent since they were sustained for over a year by many.
Nearly all of the participants in the new study considered themselves spiritually active (participating regularly in religious services, prayer or meditation). More than half had postgraduate degrees. The sessions with the otherwise illegal hallucinogen were closely monitored and volunteers were considered to be psychologically healthy
“We don’t know whether the findings can be generalized to the larger population,” Griffiths says.
As a word of caution, Griffiths also notes that some of the study participants reported strong fear or anxiety for a portion of their daylong psilocybin sessions, although none reported any lingering harmful effects. He cautions, however, that if hallucinogens are used in less well supervised settings, the possible fear or anxiety responses could lead to harmful behaviors.
Griffiths says lasting personality change is rarely looked at as a function of a single discrete experience in the laboratory. In the study, the change occurred specifically in those volunteers who had undergone a “mystical experience,” as validated on a questionnaire developed by early hallucinogen researchers and refined by Griffiths for use at Hopkins. He defines “mystical experience” as among other things, “a sense of interconnectedness with all people and things accompanied by a sense of sacredness and reverence.”
Personality was measured on a widely used and scientifically validated personality inventory, which covers openness and the other four broad domains that psychologists consider the makeup of personality: neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Only openness changed during the course of the study.
Griffiths says he believes psilocybin may have therapeutic uses. He is currently studying whether the hallucinogen has a use in helping cancer patients handle the depression and anxiety that comes along with a diagnosis, and whether it can help longtime cigarette smokers overcome their addiction.
“There may be applications for this we can’t even imagine at this point,” he says. “It certainly deserves to be systematically studied.”
Along with the National Institute on Drug Abuse, this study was funded by the Council on Spiritual Practices, Heffter Research Institute and the Betsy Gordon Foundation.
Other Hopkins authors of the research include Matthew W. Johnson, Ph.D, and Katherine A. MacLean, Ph.D.
Johns Hopkins Medicine
Media Relations and Public Affairs
Media Contact: Stephanie Desmon
410-955-8665
sdesmon1@jhmi.edu
Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
How normal cells become brain cancers
September 28, 2011
Brain tumor specimens taken from neurosurgery cases at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center has given scientists a new window on the transformation that occurs as healthy brain cells begin to form tumors.
The work may help identify new drugs to target oligodendroglioma, a common type of brain tumor, at its earliest stage, when it is generally most treatable. Any potential drugs identified will have to prove safe and effective in clinical trials, a process that can take several years.
As described in the journal Cancer Cell this month, the UCSF team found that the pool of cells from which oligodendroglioma tumors emerge normally divide “asymmetrically” by splitting into two unequal parts – like giving birth to fraternal twins who look different and have distinct fates. When these normal cells transform into cancer cells, they switch gears and begin dividing symmetrically, essentially giving birth to identical twins instead.
“This happens early – before the tumor forms, and it may provide a point to intervene in the process of tumor initiation,” said Claudia Petritsch, PhD, an assistant professor with the UCSF Brain Tumor Research Center who led the research.
The Brain Tumor Research Center is part of the UCSF Department of Neurological Surgery, which is consistently ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of the top departments in the world. Its doctors perform more than 1,100 neurosurgeries a year to remove brain tumors, and in the last 30 years, this work has helped to build one of the most extensive brain tumor repositories in the United States, with tissue samples collected from more than 7,800 cases of cancer.
In their research, Petritsch and her colleagues used genetically engineered mice to identify that a protein called NG2 controls this switch, and they are working on ways to target genes that regulate the process as a way of fighting oligodendroglioma and perhaps other brain tumors.
Why Divisions Matter to Cancer
Oligodendrogliomas are unusual among brain tumors because they often respond to chemotherapy drugs. However, the tumor frequently returns in a form that is resistant to chemotherapy and requires repeated surgical removal.
Petritsch and her colleagues first discovered last year that oligodendroglioma tumors derive from a type of progenitor cell called “oligodendrocyte progenitors” that proliferate in the brain throughout life. These progenitors may also play an important role when the brain is injured by multiplying rapidly and helping heal wounds.
The new studies in mice suggest that lacking an injury, these progenitors divide mostly asymmetrically, maintaining an equilibrium of these cells within the brain. Progenitors can also switch gears and divide symmetrically instead. Scientists believe that allows the brain to provide an expanded pool of cells when needed.
Using mouse models of the tumors as well as tissue samples taken from people with the disease, Petritsch and her colleagues showed that before the tumors arise, the cells preemptively make this switch, transforming from dividing asymmetrically to dividing symmetrically.
They used bioinformatics to discover that dozens of regulators of asymmetric cell division including NG2 are dysregulated in oligodendrogliomas. The Petritsch lab calls these “asymmetry proteins” and argues that if mutated they probably cause the switch to abnormal cell divisions and thereby initiate the genesis of tumors. Modulating NG2 and dysregulated asymmetry proteins pharmacologically may restore normal division modes and provide a new way to fight the cancer with drugs.
The article, Asymmetry-Defective Oligodendrocyte Progenitors Are Glioma Precursors” by Sista Sugiarto, Anders I. Persson, Elena Gonzalez Munoz, Markus Waldhuber, Chrystelle Lamagna, Noemi Andor, Patrizia Hanecker, Jennifer Ayers-Ringler, Joanna Phillips, Jason Siu, Daniel Lim, Scott Vandenberg, William Stallcup, Mitchel S. Berger, Gabriele Bergers, William A. Weiss, and Claudia Petritsch appears in the September 13, 2011 issue of the journal Cancer Cell. See: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ccr.2011.08.011
This work is supported by grants from the National Brain Tumor Foundation, the American Cancer Society, the American Brain Tumor Association, the National Cancer Institute, the UCSF Brain Tumor SPORE, the Brain Tumor Research Sobrato Fund, the Farber A and J Foundation, the Grove Foundation, the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation, the UCSF Sandler Program in Basic Science, the Swedish Society for Medical Research and Medical Research Council, and the Swiss National Science Foundation.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.
More Resources:
Gordon Murray Initiative
http://support.ucsf.edu/gordonmurrayinitiative
UCSF Brain Tumor Research Center
http://neurosurgery.ucsf.edu/index.php/research_BTRC.html
Department of Neurological Surgery
http://neurosurgery.ucsf.edu/
Claudia Petritsch Laboratory
http://stemcell.ucsf.edu/about/faculty/cpetritsch
Follow UCSF
UCSF.edu | Facebook.com/ucsf | Twitter.com/ucsf | YouTube.com/ucsf
Romance scams online hit hundreds of thousands of victims
September 28, 2011
New online research led by the University of Leicester reveals that over 200,000 people living in Britain may have fallen victim to online romance scams – far more than had been previously estimated. The study is believed to be the first formal academic analysis to measure the scale of this growing problem.
In the ‘online romance scam’ criminals set up fake identities using stolen photographs (often of models or army officers) and pretend to develop a romantic relationship with their victim. This is often done using online dating sites and social networking sites. At some point during the relationship they pretend to be in urgent need of money and ask for help. Many victims have been persuaded to part with large sums of money before their suspicions are aroused.
Researchers found that 52% of people surveyed online had heard of the online romance scam when it was explained to them, and that one in every 50 online adults (2%) know someone personally who had fallen victim to it.
This confirms the belief held by law enforcement agencies that this type of crime is often not reported by those affected, in many cases due to embarrassment at having been duped, or through a continuing hope that there will eventually be a genuine romance
The study led by Professor Monica Whitty, a psychologist and Professor of Contemporary Media at the University of Leicester, and Dr Tom Buchanan, a psychologist at the University of Westminster. It aimed to investigate the prevalence of victims in Great Britain and learn how widely the crime is known, as well as how people are learning about it.
Action Fraud, the national fraud reporting and advice centre run by the National Fraud Authority, identified 592 victims of this crime between 2010-11. Of these victims, 203 individuals lost over £5,000.
According to the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) romance fraud is organised crime, usually operating from outside the UK. Criminal groups make initial contact with potential victims through online dating sites and social networking sites, and will try to move the ‘relationship’ away from monitored online space before defrauding people of what can amount to large sums of money.
In some cases, even when victims cannot, or will not, send money, scammers involve them instead in money laundering by asking them to accept money into their bank accounts.
Investigations by SOCA have seen financial losses experienced by victims of online romance scams of between £50 and £240,000. Scammers’ victims also suffer what is effectively a bereavement, from the loss of a relationship they believed to be genuine.
The researchers surveyed over 2,000 people through an online YouGov survey and estimated from the results that over two hundred thousand British citizens have fallen victim to the crime. They further estimate over 1 million people personally know someone who has been scammed.
Professor Whitty, said: “Our data suggests that the numbers of British victims of this relatively new crime is much higher than reported incidents would suggest. It also confirms law enforcement suspicions that this is an under-reported crime, and thus more serious than first thought.
“This is a concern not solely because people are losing large sums of money to these criminals, but also because of the psychological impact experienced by victims of this crime.
“It is our view that the trauma caused by this scam is worse than any other, because of the ‘double hit’ experienced by the victims – loss of monies and a ‘romantic relationship’.
“It may well be that the shame and upset experienced by the victims deters them from reporting the crime. We thus believe new methods of reporting the crime are needed.”
Professor Whitty added that the results of the research suggest warnings about the fraud are reaching about half of the British population: “This provides us with a marker for future research in preventive measures. It may well be, of course, that knowledge of the crime does not prevent it. However, it is important to compare knowledge of the crime and number of victims in future studies.”
SOCA’s Colin Woodcock, Senior Manager for Fraud Prevention, said:
“SOCA has worked hard to understand the nature of this crime and how it can be tackled, and this study provides further insights into the extent to which it is affecting people in the UK. The fact that 52% of respondents were aware of romance scams shows that progress has been made in raising awareness, but also that millions of people in the UK remain at risk of being successfully targeted by the crime groups committing this type of fraud.
“The perpetrators spend long periods of time grooming their victims, working out their vulnerabilities and when the time is right to ask for money. By being aware of how to stay safe online, members of the UK public can ensure they don’t join those who have lost nearly every penny they had, been robbed of their self-respect, and in some cases, committed suicide after being exploited, relentlessly, by these criminals. It is crucial that nobody sends money to someone they meet online, and haven’t got to know well and in person.”
Notes to Editors:
Further details are available from Professor Monica Whitty, Professor of Contemporary Media, Department of Media and Communication, University of Leicester, email mw229@le.ac.uk
Or contact University of Leicester Press office 0116 252 2415; pressoffice@le.ac.uk
All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 2028 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 6th – 8th July 2011. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+).
Number of people scammed was devised by the following formula:
47,754,569 (British adults – source, Office of National Statistics)*.0065 (percentage of sample who were scammed) *.74 (British adults online)
Number of people who know someone scammed was devised by the following formula: 47,754,569 (British adults – source, Office of National Statistics*0.0228(percentage of sample who knew someone scammed)
The research also investigated the effectiveness of media targeting to alert people to online scams and suggests the need to utilise radio more effectively to disseminate knowledge about the online romance scam.
Professor Whitty carried out the survey with Dr Tom Buchanan, a psychologist at the University of Westminster; YouGov, a professional research and consulting organization; and SOCA (Serious Organised Crime Agency).
Contact: Professor Monica Whitty
mw229@le.ac.uk
University of Leicester
Public ignorant about key messages concerning diet and cancer
September 27, 2011
New research on public perceptions about cancer reveals that 50-year-old ideas still hold sway while many current lifestyle messages are not getting through.
On the positive side, however, the vast majority of people now believe cancer is curable.
Experts at the University of Leicester and Leicester’s Hospitals carried out the research to assess patients’ beliefs about the causes of cancer, which was funded by the Leicestershire-based charity Hope Against Cancer.
The study, published online in the journal Clinical Oncology, aimed to compare knowledge about the outcome of cancer treatment and beliefs about the causes of cancer among British South Asian cancer patients and beliefs held by British White cancer patients and the impact of these beliefs upon the patients’ mental health.
Between September 2007 and January 2010, 279 patients, who were aware they had cancer, entered the study, funded by Leicestershire-based charity Hope Against Cancer, at the Leicestershire Cancer Centre. Researchers found that:
- Across both groups there was an over emphasis on pollution, stress and injury as causes of cancer
- Almost one quarter of the group believed cancer was caused by injury, reflecting research carried out over half a century ago
- 20% believed that surgery could cause cancer to spread
- Both cohorts believed religion/fate played a part in cancer
- 30% of the group gave credence to alternative medicine being as effective as current clinical procedures
- It was generally accepted that smoking can cause cancer
- There was widespread lack of awareness about the roles diet, obesity and lack of exercise play in the development of the disease.
The vast majority believed cancer to be curable, with only 10.6% of the British South Asian group and 2.7% of the British White group thinking it was incurable. Out of the total sample, 93% understood the advantages of early screening.
Many of the two groups’ assumptions about cancer were held in common. There was widespread over-emphasis on environmental pollution, stress and injury as triggers for cancer. Environmental pollution is a relatively minor cause of cancer, while there is no evidence that stress or injury can cause cancer.
Twenty per cent of the sample believed wrongly that treatment, in particular surgery, caused the cancer to spread and this was a cause of significant depression among British South Asians and anxiety across both groups.
The perceived role of religion in the cause of and recovery from cancer was more prevalent among the British South Asians, though a small cohort of the British White patients had some belief in Fate.
Nearly 30% of the total sample thought alternative treatments could be as effective as surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. This view was held by almost twice as many British South Asian patients as British White patients.
The way patients understand cancer can have a major impact on how they cope with it psychologically. This study is part of a wider investigation with the long-term aim of improving psychological support of cancer patients.
Professor Paul Symonds, of the Department for Cancer Studies and Molecular Medicine at the University of Leicester, commented: “It is clear that there is a continual need for education into the causes of cancer. The good news is that the majority of the sample believed that cancer was curable and screening effective, while 84% appreciated that smoking could cause cancer.
“This shows that some messages are getting through, but we clearly have more work to do in educating the public on the effect of diet and obesity.”
Karen Lord, PhD research student working on the project, said: “It is vital that those diagnosed with cancer have accurate information about treatment options so that they can make informed decisions about their care.
“Myths such as the belief that surgery causes cancer to spread and that alternative treatment is as effective as conventional treatments should be challenged.”
Wendi Stevens, Hope Against Cancer Co-ordinator, added: “This research has highlighted some interesting views relating to cancer. Hope Against Cancer funds a wide range of research looking into treatment, but we believe it is also important to look at cause and education as well in the hope that this knowledge can be used to cut the incidence of cancer in the future.”
Notes to Editors: Further details are available from Paul Symonds, Professor of Clinical Oncology, Department of Cancer Studies and Molecular Medicine, University of Leicester, tel 0116 258 6294, email paul.symonds@uhl-tr.nhs.uk
Gaile Lloyd-Jones, Hope Against Cancer Press Officer – gaile.lloyd_jones@btopenworld.com 07799491555
Hope Against Cancer – 0116 270 0101, enquiries@hfcr.org
Hope Against Cancer was launched in 2003 and to date have raised over £2.2 million, enabling the charity to fund 28 research fellowships in the Hospitals and Universities of Leicester including DMU & Loughborough Into many cancers including bladder, ovarian, prostate, melanoma, liver, bowel, leukaemia, colorectal and breast cancer. They have also funded nursing fellowships, relating to patient care.
Contact: Paul Symonds
paul.symonds@uhl-tr.nhs.uk
44-011-625-86294
University of Leicester