United Press International - NewsTrack - 'Perception gene' is genetically tracked

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11/15/2005 6:35:00 PM -0500

Newstrack: Louisiana state legislators are making little progress in ensuring more than 900,000 voters who fled two hurricanes can vote in primaries next February. Iran has dismissed a Russian offer and begun converting a new batch of uranium at a nuclear facility into possible nuclear weapons fuel. Newly declassified documents show former U.S. President Richard Nixon faced similar dilemmas in Vietnam to those faced by President Bush in Iraq. U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., said he plans to ask the Pentagon to allow certain intelligence officers to testify about pre-Sept. 11 investigations. Minority Sunni Muslims in Iraq have alleged they were tortured in secret prisons operated by the new Iraqi government and military. U.S. military strategists are re-examining claims many of the insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq are from other countries, as supporting evidence is slim. The winds and flood waters of Hurricane Katrina apparently swept away New Orleans' killers, thieves and thugs as the first murder was reported in three months. Texas has executed a 34-year-old man convicted of drug-related slayings of a man and his two children on Christmas Eve in 1993. U.S. President George Bush and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun reiterated their unity Thursday on the dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear program. Indonesian police have found a video in which a masked man believed to be militant Noordin Mohammad Top threatens Western countries with terror attacks.

NewsTrack

'Perception gene' is genetically tracked

BLOOMINGTON, Ind., Nov. 15 (UPI) -- A gene thought to influence perception and susceptibility to drug dependence is reportedly expressed more readily in human beings than in other primates.

And that difference, say Indiana University-Bloomington researchers and scientists at three other academic institutions, coincides with the evolution of our species.

The gene encodes prodynorphin, an opium-like protein implicated in the anticipation and experience of pain, social attachment and bonding, as well as learning and memory.

"Humans have the ability to turn on this gene more easily and more intensely than other primates," said computational biologist Matthew Hahn, who conducted most of the study's population genetics work. "Given its function, we believe regulation of this gene was likely important in the evolution of modern humans' mental capacity."

The scientists say their report supports a growing consensus among evolutionary anthropologists that hominid divergence from the other great apes was fueled not by the origin of new genes, but by the quickening (or slowing) of the expression of existing genes.

The research, conducted by Hahn and colleagues at Duke University, University College London and the Medical University of Vienna, appears in the December issue of Public Library of Science Biology.

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