̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - uncertainty

Uncertainty about facts can be reported without damaging public trust in news – study

fpjl2 — Mon, 23 Mar 2020 16:33:08 +0000

̽��ֱ��numbers that drive headlines – those on Covid-19 infections, for example – contain significant levels of uncertainty: assumptions, limitations, extrapolations, and so on.

Experts and journalists have long assumed that revealing the 'noise' inherent in data confuses audiences and undermines trust, say ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge researchers, despite this being little studied.

Now, new research has found that uncertainty around key facts and figures can be communicated in a way that maintains public trust in information and its source, even on contentious issues such as immigration and climate change.

Researchers say they hope the work, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, will encourage scientists and media to be bolder in reporting statistical uncertainties.

“Estimated numbers with major uncertainties get reported as absolutes,” said Dr Anne Marthe van der Bles, who led the new study while at Cambridge’s Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication.

“This can affect how the public views risk and human expertise, and it may produce negative sentiment if people end up feeling misled,” she said.

Co-author Sander van der Linden, director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab, said: “Increasing accuracy when reporting a number by including an indication of its uncertainty provides the public with better information. In an era of fake news that might help foster trust.”

̽��ֱ��team of psychologists and mathematicians set out to see if they could get people much closer to the statistical 'truth' in a news-style online report without denting perceived trustworthiness.

They conducted five experiments involving a total of 5,780 participants, including a unique field experiment hosted by BBC News online, which displayed the uncertainty around a headline figure in different ways.

̽��ֱ��researchers got the best results when a figure was flagged as an estimate, and accompanied by the numerical range from which it had been derived, for example: '…the unemployment rate rose to an estimated 3.9% (between 3.7%–4.1%)'.

This format saw a marked increase in the feeling and understanding that the data held uncertainty, but little to no negative effect on levels of trust in the data itself, those who provided it (e.g. civil servants) or those reporting it (e.g. journalists).

“We hope these results help to reassure all communicators of facts and science that they can be more open and transparent about the limits of human knowledge,” said co-author Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter, Chair of the Winton Centre at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Catherine Dennison, Welfare Programme Head at the Nuffield Foundation, said: “We are committed to building trust in evidence at a time when it is frequently called into question. This study provides helpful guidance on ensuring informative statistics are credibly communicated to the public.”

̽��ֱ��findings are published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Most experiment participants were recruited through the online crowdsourcing platform Prolific. They were given short, news-style texts on one of four topics: UK unemployment, UK immigration, Indian tiger populations, or climate change.

Uncertainty was presented as a single added word (e.g. ‘estimated’), a numerical range, a longer verbal caveat – 'there is uncertainty around this figure: it could be somewhat higher or lower' – or combination of these, as well as the ‘control’ of a standalone figure without uncertainty, typical of most news reporting.

They found that the added word did not register with people, and the longer caveat registered but significantly diminished trust – the researchers believe it was too ambiguous. Presenting the numerical range (from minimum to maximum) had the right balance of signaling uncertainty with little evidence for loss of trust.

Prior views on contested topics within news reports, such as migration, were included in the analysis. Although attitudes towards the issue mattered for how facts were viewed, when openness about data uncertainty was added it did not substantially reduce trust in either the numbers or the source.

̽��ֱ��team worked with the BBC to conduct a field experiment in October 2019, when figures were released about the UK labour market.

In the BBC’s online story, figures were either presented as usual, a ‘control’, or with some uncertainty – a verbal caveat or a numerical range – and a link to a brief survey. Findings from this 'real world' experiment matched those from the study’s other 'lab conditions' experiments.

“We recommend that journalists and those producing data give people the fuller picture,” said co-author Dr Alexandra Freeman, Executive Director of the Winton Centre.

“If a number is an estimate, let them know how precise that estimate is by putting a minimum and maximum in brackets afterwards.”

Sander van der Linden added: “Ultimately we’d like to see the cultivation of psychological comfort around the fact that knowledge and data always contain uncertainty.”

“Disinformation often appears definitive, and fake news plays on a sense of certainty,” he said.

“One way to help people navigate today’s post-truth news environment is by being honest about what we don’t know, such as the exact number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK. Our work suggests people can handle the truth.”

Last month, David Spiegelhalter launched a podcast about statistics, ‘Risky Talk’. In the first episode he discusses communicating climate change data with Sander van der Linden and Dr Emily Shuckburgh, leader of the ̽��ֱ��’s new climate initiative Cambridge Zero.

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A series of experiments – including one on the BBC News website – finds the use of numerical ranges in news reports helps us grasp the uncertainty of stats while maintaining trust in data and its sources.

Ultimately we’d like to see the cultivation of psychological comfort around the fact that knowledge and data always contain uncertainty

Sander van der Linden

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

How risky is your breakfast?

lw355 — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 11:00:51 +0000

Like it or not, risks get communicated to us every day. Whether it’s the climate, the euro crisis or the booze, someone is warning us to change our ways or we may be in trouble. We may get irritated by all this finger-wagging, but there is a serious science that can be applied to all these messages.

Let’s assume we want to communicate some risk. Are we trying to inform people or persuade them to do something? ̽��ֱ��traditional view is that these were much the same thing: the public are ‘irrational’ because they are ill-informed, and so if we just educate people then they will not hold misguided beliefs and do silly things.

Fortunately this ‘deficit model’ has been superseded by a slightly more sophisticated view, which recognises that people vary considerably, and that their reactions and behaviour are not going to be primarily influenced by the information they receive. Their ‘affect’ – that is the overall positive or negative feeling of individuals towards a potential hazard – is vital, and this is influenced by context, culture and habit. These feelings can be tricky to change, and the simple provision of information can have minimal influence. In contrast, the advice of a trusted source can be crucial.

This may appear rather discouraging, but we have an ethical duty to provide transparent information so that people can, if they wish, weigh up the pros and cons, set their own risk threshold and decide what to do. This is the mind-set underlying the Winton Programme for the Public Understanding of Risk; our team tries to explain risk and debunk myths by engaging the public through stories, creating attractive graphics and entertaining animations, and explaining the ideas behind the numbers.

So what are ethical and transparent representations? First, we need to recognise that there will always be an emotional aspect to the communication, whether it’s the images used or even the colours. Advertisers exploit this all the time. Second, more philosophically, I would argue that there is no ‘true risk’ in the sense that these chances and values actually exist as part of the outside world – they are constructed on the basis of our judgement and knowledge. This means we have to use metaphor and narrative to communicate.

Let’s assume that we are willing to put numbers on the chances. For example, a recent newspaper story reported a 20% increased risk of developing pancreatic cancer per 50 g of processed meat eaten per day. Such relative risk formats have been shown in controlled trials to exaggerate the magnitude of effects, and so instead it is recommended (and even mandated by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry) that absolute risks are used. ̽��ֱ��lifetime risk of developing pancreatic cancer is 1 in 80; however, if we look at this risk in terms of how many people out of 400 might be expected to develop pancreatic cancer after a daily healthy breakfast (five) compared with a bacon sandwich (six), the difference doesn’t look very impressive.

I have been collaborating with Dr Mike Aitken in the Department of Experimental Psychology on the Big Risk Test run by BBC Lab UK, in which over 60,000 participants have taken part in an online randomised trial of different formats and images. ̽��ֱ��insights gained are being used to help design revised patient information leaflets and websites for a cancer screening programme in the UK.

But in many situations there is deeper uncertainty, and we are rightly not so happy to give concrete numbers to risks. ̽��ֱ��National Risk Register gives wide intervals for the chances of various disasters occurring, while the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other organisations have developed measures of ‘confidence’ or star ratings for their risk analyses. ̽��ֱ��UK government officially encourages the acknowledgement of such scientific uncertainty, but can we retain trust if we are so open?

Fortunately there are signs that these issues are being taken seriously, with the House of Commons Select Committee for Science and Technology recently recommending a Risk Communication Strategy Group across government. But a problem is that this area cuts across many academic boundaries, and there is little focused infrastructure in the UK. Risk communication is a topic that deserves investment in research and training.

Understanding how the numbers add up in relation to risk can help us deal with our own uncertainty, as David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk, explains.

I would argue that there is no ‘true risk’ in the sense that these chances and values actually exist as part of the outside world – they are constructed on the basis of our judgement and knowledge.

Professor David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk

121026_spegielhalter-graphic

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Yes

Ounce of prevention, pound of cure

lw355 — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 12:34:13 +0000

Benjamin Franklin famously advised fire-threatened Philadelphians in 1736 that “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Clearly, preventing fires is better than fighting them, but to what extent can we protect ourselves from natural disasters? Hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, hurricanes and volcanic eruptions are not in themselves preventable, but some of their devastating effects could be reduced through forward planning.

“It’s important to be able to recover resiliently from disasters and, as part of this, it’s vital to identify the vulnerabilities of communities living in hazard-prone regions,” explained Michael Ramage from the Centre for Risk in the Built Environment (CURBE). By putting resources into resilience and building back better, communities can reduce the risk of disastrous consequences should a similar event reoccur.”

Now, thanks to an information system that Cambridge researchers developed originally for tracking how regions recover from disasters, communities could soon have the means to understand how best to protect themselves from future catastrophes.

̽��ֱ��story begins in Haiti, where CURBE researcher Daniel Brown has been working over the past year with the British Red Cross and the United Nations following the devastating earthquake in 2010, which killed 316,000, displaced 1.3 million and destroyed almost 100,000 houses. In a country that was deeply impoverished before the earthquake, people continue to live under tarpaulins exposed to safety and security risks, with limited access to water, livelihoods and key services.

Brown travelled to the country to field-test a system that he and colleagues at Cambridge Architectural Research (CAR) and ImageCat had developed during the previous four years as a mapping technique for tracking post-disaster recovery.

With funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Brown had identified a suite of 12 ‘performance indicators’ spanning core recovery sectors extracted from high-resolution satellite imagery. He used these to map the recovery process in Ban Nam Khem, Thailand, after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, by looking at aspects such as the movement of populations, the construction of dwellings, the accessibility of roads, and the loss and rebuilding of livelihoods.

In Thailand and Pakistan, the system had already proved to be extremely useful. Brown’s work provided data and results that assisted decision making and had the potential to ensure the recovery process was both transparent and accountable.

In Haiti, the EPSRC-funded follow-on project aimed to fine-tune the performance indicators within operational situations to suit the workflow of aid agencies.

What Brown found, however, was that in the complex and dynamic situation that follows a disaster, agencies desperately needed a real-time system to help them decide where to put resources. “Many of the hundreds of maps produced within the first week of the Haiti earthquake were soon out of date because of the changeability of the situation,” he explained. “There was also a massive duplication of effort, with agencies often lacking trained staff to ensure the right information about buildings and people was acquired at the right time.”

Dr Stephen Platt, Chairman of CAR, who has also been working on the project, described how these findings confirmed the results of a survey the team had previously carried out: “Agencies told us that they lack coordinated mapping information on where displaced populations have gone and where they have begun to return to, as well as damage to livelihoods, and rehabilitation of homes and infrastructure. It’s very hard for them to decide where to put funds to the best effect for positive and resilient change.”

Brown’s first task was a remote analysis of the affected area from his office in Cambridge, using pre-disaster satellite imagery together with a new technique based on high-resolution oblique aerial photographs that capture views of the façade of buildings, and Lidar, which measures building height. On his arrival in Haiti, he identified which of the performance indicators was relevant for planning and used these to gather field information on the state of buildings, the socioeconomic impact on people, the safest places to rebuild and the community’s views. All data were integrated into a single database to aid the design of a rebuilding programme.

“We were delighted to find that the information system can be used for all phases of the disaster cycle, from preparedness through to damage assessment, then planning and finally recovery monitoring. You could think of each phase comprising a single module in the database. All these phases are effectively interrelated with each other – data produced during one phase can be used in another phase. So when we collected damage data, these could be used as a baseline to inform planning, and so on,” explained Brown.

Ramage, Principal Investigator for the follow-on project, added: “You can see how a system that can be used to predict where future vulnerabilities might be in a community is so important. And, through Steve’s work in New Zealand, Chile and Italy, we have learnt more about how governments and agencies in developed countries are currently responding to disasters, which has allowed us to learn more about how our system and ideas might be adapted for different contexts.”

Echoing this, Dr Emily So, Director of CURBE, explained how the project fitted into what’s been called the disaster management cycle: “Governments and agencies think in terms of mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery.

What we are trying to do in our research – which builds on 25 years of work in this area in the Department of Architecture under the leadership of Professor Robin Spence – is to make sure that we not only do reactive groundwork after the disaster but also proactive work, to mitigate and prepare ahead of the event and reduce the risk of disaster.”

̽��ֱ��team has recently been awarded funding for a two-year project involving eight global institutions with the remit of using satellite remote sensing to understand risk and vulnerabilities in communities around the world, under the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme.

“ ̽��ֱ��hazard itself is not what creates the disaster,” added So. “It’s the quality of the housing and the social fabric. This is where CURBE can help in terms of assessing exposure and proposing methods of evaluating it. Better information means better ideas, means better protection.”

For more information, please contact Louise Walsh (louise.walsh@admin.cam.ac.uk) at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Office of External Affairs and Communications.

Working with humanitarian organisations in Haiti, Cambridge researchers have found that an information system they designed to track how regions recovered from disasters can also be used to support preparedness, planning and project management.

Better information means better ideas, means better protection.

Dr Emily So

Colin Crowley on flickr

Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake

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Yes

Risk and uncertainty

lw355 — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 11:00:20 +0000

None of us know what is going to happen in the future, either to ourselves or to society. Yet we still have to make decisions, whether it’s a personal dilemma (should I cut down my drinking?) or a political choice (should there be a minimum alcohol price?). Making important decisions in the face of uncertainty is unsettling and difficult, and so is a vital area of academic research, one which is being tackled by a wide range of disciplines and approaches at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

From cybercrime to earthquakes, influenza to air travel, the topics researched here reflect issues that are of crucial importance. It is an extraordinarily diverse area, although many informal interactions are increasingly focused on the Centre for Risk Studies, in the Cambridge Judge Business School, and the Centre for Risk in the Built Environment, in the Department of Architecture. Alongside this is a growing role of the Centre for Science and Policy in promoting engagement between policy professionals, business leaders and experts in the sciences and engineering.

But what do we mean by risk and uncertainty? A common distinction is as follows. If we feel we understand what is going on, and have some confidence in our assessment of the chances of different futures, then we can say we are dealing with risks, and can hope to produce a numerically balanced judgement. When we have the humility to acknowledge that we cannot put numbers on everything, then we are dealing with deeper uncertainty, and may instead aim for resilience to surprises. Much research is attempting to extend the domain that can be adequately quantified.

Finally, there has been a traditional division between risk assessment (how big are the risks?) and risk management (what should we do about them?). This is not so straightforward – how we analyse threats is closely connected to what we might be able to do about them. Academics need to be grounded in the real world in order to know both what is important and what is feasible.

This month, the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge will be profiling research that addresses risk and uncertainty. To begin, Professor David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk, explains why this is a vital field of academic research.

Making important decisions in the face of uncertainty is unsettling and difficult.

Professor David Spiegelhalter

Mark Mniszko

David Spiegelhalter

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Yes

Unclouding uncertainty in climate modelling

bjb42 — Fri, 01 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Our climate is the net result of many complex processes that transfer and redistribute the Sun’s energy through the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, land and ecosystems. Because these processes are basically nonlinear, their interaction unavoidably leads to chaotic variability of climate and weather on various time scales, and we rely on climate models to achieve some sense of the dynamics of weather and to predict future climate. Currently, one of the greatest sources of uncertainty in climate modelling is posed by clouds, which are not resolved individually but instead are averaged. Professor Hans-F. Graf’s group, based in the Department of Geography and part of the Centre for Atmospheric Science (see panel), is developing a new technique for global and regional climate modelling that moves beyond treating clouds as ‘one-size-fits-all’.

Cloudy issues

Climate models consist of a set of coupled differential equations based on first principles of physics that are solved numerically by dividing the planet into a three-dimensional grid. Available computer power dictates that each grid is typically 100–300 km in size. Unfortunately, any processes that are smaller cannot be explicitly resolved and have to be ‘parameterised’ as an average. Among these are clouds: the standard approach has been to create an average cloud that has to mimic all the effects of the cloud spectrum of different-sized convective clouds. Of course, in nature, the cloud spectrum is highly variable depending on the actual weather situation and location, and clouds can range from a few hundred metres to a few kilometres in scale.

Clouds are extremely important for realistic model simulations since they are the ultimate drivers of the global atmospheric circulation. Water vapour carrying latent heat is transported upwards by convection or in large weather systems (fronts), where it cools and eventually forms clouds; precipitation as rain then releases the latent heat. This convection is strongest in the tropics, where the vapour-laden trade winds from both hemispheres converge, forming deep, rain-producing convective clouds. It is here that the atmosphere receives the energy that drives the whole global circulation.

Clouds are also highly relevant to changes in climate that result from human activities. Changes in land use affect reflectivity and evaporation from soil and vegetation, and hence the transfer of energy to the atmosphere; fossil fuel burning and industrial processes increase aerosols that reflect sunlight or absorb solar and terrestrial radiation. Both land use change and aerosols have an effect on cloudiness and precipitation at both the local and the micro scale.

Predator–prey

̽��ֱ��innovative approach adopted by Professor Graf’s group has been to simulate the behaviour and microphysics of convective clouds using a concept more familiar within population dynamics: they treat clouds as individuals that compete for food.

This technique allows the separation of individual clouds from a larger set of clouds that can potentially evolve under a given weather situation (that is, at a specific time and in a specific grid cell of the model). ̽��ֱ��system is based on the solution of a set of Lotka–Volterra-type differential equations, also known as predator–prey equations from their use for describing biological systems: the clouds (the ‘predators’) have a limited ‘food’ supply of convective available potential energy (the ‘prey’, this being the amount of energy available for convection), for which clouds of different characteristics (size, depth) are competing.

By capturing the variations of cloud spectra in a statistical sense, cloud microphysics can be treated explicitly and it is now possible to determine in-cloud vertical velocities, interactions with aerosols, convective transport, rainfall intensity and radiation effects.

Forest fires and volcanic ash

̽��ֱ��team has been focusing on a variety of different types of cloud – most notably the effects of smoke on clouds and precipitation over Amazonia and Indonesia. Initially funded by the European Union, the project is now contributing to the Danum-OP3 consortium that spans eight UK institutions and is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to investigate the effects of the replacement of pristine rain forest by oil palm plantations in northern Borneo. Recently published data show how the smoke from the extreme peat fires that plagued Indonesia and surrounding countries for months during 1997–8 reduced the amounts of rainfall in the area. ̽��ֱ��reduced rainfall, in turn, increased the residence time of the smoke particles in the atmosphere, thus aggravating the situation.

A second focus has been the development and application of the Active Tracer High-resolution Atmospheric Model (ATHAM). ̽��ֱ��development of this high-resolving model started immediately after the eruption of the Mount Pinatubo volcano on the Philippines in the early 1990s, when Professor Graf was at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg. ̽��ֱ��model simulates convective plumes at resolutions down to a few tens of metres and was initially used to understand the dynamic, microphysical and chemical processes within volcanic eruption plumes. An important question was whether these vigorous convective systems could effectively transport magmatic halogen compounds into the stratosphere, where they could harm the ozone layer. ̽��ֱ��model has also been used successfully to simulate big fire storms induced by wild fires, and the results have proved that pollutants from these fires are introduced into the lower stratosphere.

Further applications of ATHAM are under current investigation by Dr Michael Herzog in Professor Graf’s group, particularly in relation to aviation safety. Fine silicate ash from volcanic eruptions poses a severe risk for aeroplanes. Although ash clouds can be detected by satellite monitoring, they are often obscured by ice particles residing above the ash, and ATHAM can be used to predict whether ice is formed within a volcanic plume. Further plans with ATHAM are ongoing with support from a joint Chinese–German research project that will study the effects on weather and climate in Southeast Asia resulting from the dramatic changes of land use and ecology on the Tibetan plateau during the past 60 years.

For more information, please contact the author Professor Hans-F. Graf (hans.graf@geog.cam.ac.uk) at the Department of Geography.

New understanding of the physics of clouds is helping to model both climate change and the impact of volcanic eruptions and wild fires.

Professor Graf’s group has simulated the behaviour and microphysics of convective clouds using a concept more familiar within population dynamics: they treat clouds as individuals that compete for food.

Flickr - Marsha Jorgensen

Clouds 1 - free to use

Centre for Atmospheric Science

̽��ֱ��Centre for Atmospheric Science is one of the premier groups in the UK for atmospheric studies. It encompasses research in three departments:

Department of Chemistry: Numerical modelling of tropospheric and stratospheric chemistry/climate (Professor John Pyle), instruments and measurements (Professor Rod Jones), measurements of gas kinetics (Dr Tony Cox) and studies of atmospheric aerosols (Dr Markus Kalberer).
Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics: Investigation of fundamental aspects of atmospheric dynamics and physical processes (Professors Peter Haynes and Michael McIntyre).
Department of Geography: Research on convection, modelling plumes and stratospheric dynamics (Professor Hans-F. Graf and Dr Michael Herzog).

̽��ֱ��Centre is co-directed by Professor John Pyle and Professor Peter Haynes. For more information, please contact Professor Haynes (P.H.Haynes@damtp.cam.ac.uk) or visit www.atm.ch.cam.ac.uk

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Yes

Key to regulation of puberty discovered

bjb42 — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��research, published in this week's Nature Genetics, identified the hormone Neurokinin B as a critical part of the control system that switches on the master regulator of human puberty. Although Neurokinin B was previously known to be present in the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that controls puberty, its key role was not previously appreciated.

̽��ֱ��identification of Neurokinin B could lead to new treatments for sex hormone dependent diseases like prostate cancer, new approaches to contraception, and its manipulation could result in new treatments for children with delayed or abnormal puberty.

It has long been known that a specific hormonal signal from the hypothalamus is essential to switch on the system that controls the production of sex hormones from the ovaries and testis. Turning on the system is essential to enter puberty and maintain sexual function in adults.

Control over this system is governed by the brain through the release of the hormone GnRH (gonadotropin releasing hormone) which starts a series of processes that ultimately leads to the production of sex hormones. However, how GnRH secretion is turned off after birth, and how it reactivates at puberty, has been unclear.

In order to identify new signals involved in regulating this process, the researchers used a strategy of searching for genetic defects in families in Turkey in which more than one member did not go through puberty, making an inherited defect likely. They discovered mutation in two genes: TAC3 (one family) and TACR3 (three families).

Mutations in these genes severely affect the function of Neurokinin B. ̽��ֱ��TAC3 gene codes for Neurokinin B while TACR3 produces its receptor. These mutations were only found in members with the condition, severe congenital gonadotropin deficiency, and not their siblings. Affected individuals were all homozygous (they have two identical copies of the gene) for these mutations.

A small number of studies using mice and rats had previously linked Neurokinin B to puberty, but the wider view was that its main role was instead in water balance, cognitive function or a number of other processes. This research clears this uncertainty and establishes the central role for Neurokinin B and its receptor in puberty and the regulation of sexual and reproductive function.

Commenting on the research Dr Robert Semple, from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and one of the authors of the study said: "As a practicing doctor I am excited by this discovery because it immediately helps to understand the underlying problem in rare patients with inherited defects in sexual maturation, and suggests a potential target for their specific treatment. However identifying single genetic defects in patients with rare disorders also has implications for understanding normal regulation of key bodily functions, and is one of the most powerful ways of proving the genes concerned.

" ̽��ֱ��Neurokinin B/Neurokinin 3 receptor system is highly amenable in principle to targeting as a treatment, and I expect that this genetic discovery will lead to intense efforts to understand Neurokinin B's role in puberty in more detail, and to try to develop clinically valuable drugs."

Professor Steve O'Rahilly, from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge said: "This unexpected finding puts one more important piece in the unfinished jigsaw puzzle that is our understanding of puberty. It could also open up new ways of treating certain sex hormone related diseases"

A team of scientists from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the ̽��ֱ�� of Cukurova in Turkey has taken a major step to understanding how the brain controls the onset of puberty.

As a practicing doctor I am excited by this discovery because it immediately helps to understand the underlying problem in rare patients with inherited defects in sexual maturation, and suggests a potential target for their specific treatment.

Dr Robert Semple

Son of Groucho from Flickr

Discarded Teenagers

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Yes