Extinguishing pain’s flame Priceless. Changbai’s stunning Some researchers argue that the clinical uses vistas are drawing increasing of PET and fMRI won’t be limited to diag- numbers of tourists—and increas- nosing brain disorders. In the 20 December ing pressures on the landscape. 2005 PNAS, neuroscientists reported using fMRI to teach people with chronic pain to monitor and control their own brain activ- ity—a high-tech version of biofeedback. The research team included scientists from Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was led by Christopher deCharms, a neuroscientist and president of Omneuron, a start-up company in Menlo Park, California. Each patient slid into an fMRI scanner and watched a computer-generated flame flickering on a monitor. The intensity of the flame reflected, with a few seconds’ delay, neural activity picked up by the scanner in the patient’s right anterior cingulate cortex, a region implicated in pain perception. The patients who best learned to minimize the flame reported the greatest reduction of ECOLOGY pain symptoms immediately after the ses- sion. Another group of patients whose flames were fed by neural activity in their A Threatened Nature Reserve posterior cingulate cortex, an area not asso- ciated with pain processing, showed no Breaks Down Asian Borders such reduction. “I thought this was enormously clever,” Chinese and share a love of Changbai Mountain, which straddles their border. says Raichle. Biofeedback has been tried pre- Now that the area is under threat, the two sides may join hands to save it viously for chronic pain, he says, but this is the first attempt to specifically target the brain CHANGBAISHAN NATURE RESERVE, — the Changbai Mountain Academy of regions that process pain. DeCharms’s team is To many Chinese, Changbai Mountain, Sciences (JCMAS). now doing a larger trial with weekly neuro- whose jagged volcanic summit cups a crater The reserve, roughly half the size of feedback sessions for pain patients and fol- lake on the border of North , is the New York’s Long Island, is also under lowing up to see how long the effect lasts. fatherland of Manchurian emperors who rose increasing pressure from the inside. Chinese Omneuron is also experimenting with to power during the Qing Dynasty 4 centuries hot-spring resorts and Korean revolutionary real-time fMRI to assist psychotherapy. The ago. Koreans, meanwhile, revere the iconic museums on Changbai’s flanks—the firm’s preliminary work has been in people peak, which they call Paektu, as the birth- rugged, isolated terrain provided cover for with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). place of their culture and the nerve center of the resistance—have transformed the Last year, at the annual meeting of the Orga- resistance to Japanese colonial rule in the reserve into a tourist mecca. nization for Human Brain Mapping, 1930s and ’40s. For scientists, Changbai is Hoping to counter these threats to the frag- deCharms and colleagues described the precious for another reason: It’s a unique ile ecosystems, the Chinese government this method. Patients with OCD lie in the scan- set of ecosystems under siege. Now, a new year designated Changbaishan, or “Perpetu- ner, where they see the computer-generated Chinese initiative aims to save it. ally White Mountain,” as a major research ini- flame, as well as a video link to their thera- Changbaishan Nature Reserve, the tiative in its latest 5-year plan. It’s pouring pist, who sits in the control booth and also largest protected temperate forest in the money into new facilities and projects, includ- keeps an eye on the flame. world, is home to endangered Siberian ing a biodiversity survey and a study of how to It’s far too early to say whether the tigers and the last stands of virgin Korean better manage the Changbai ecosystems. The method will work. One of the central chal- pine-mixed hardwood on the planet. It’s venerated mountain may also become a lenges, deCharms says, is determining the “one of the most spectacular and relatively symbol of science transcending boundaries. best brain areas to fuel the flames. Fortu- undisturbed ranges in China,” says Burton Chinese and North Korean forest ecologists, nately, he adds, functional neuroimaging Barnes, a forest ecologist at the University who have had scant contact in recent years, are methods such as fMRI have already pro- of Michigan, Ann Arbor, who conducted discussing the potential for collaborations at vided many clues about what regions are research here in the 1980s and early ’90s. Changbai. From the vantage of local authori-

SCIENCE involved in many psychiatric disorders. But aggressive logging along the reserve’s ties, such cooperation “would be incredibly “The big question for us is, ‘How can we Chinese edge, and conversion to croplands possible,” says Ding Zhihui, deputy director of take this nearly 20 years of research and on the Korean side, threaten to turn the Jilin Changbaishan Protection, Develop- turn it into clinical applications?’ ” Changbai into “an oasis in a sea of clear- ment, and Management Committee. –GREG MILLER cutting,” says Wang Shaoxian, director of CREDIT: R. STONE/ CREDIT: A research stint at Changbai has long

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been a rite of passage for many Jilin authorities created Chinese researchers. Biologists, JCMAS earlier this year to volcanologists, and meteorolo- strengthen and coordinate gists would winter at a cliff-hug- research in the reserve. Although ging station with stunning views Changbai boasts a panoply of of Heaven Lake (in Korean, life, including more than 2000 Lake Chon). “That time of year, plant species, “there has never it’s like the North Pole here,” says been a systematic survey,” says Dai Limin of the Institute of Wang. Just such an initiative Applied Ecology in Shenyang. started last December and should Temperatures can plunge below be completed this autumn, he –40°C, and heavy snowfalls make says. JCMAS plans to work with the winding road up the peak universities and CAS institutes impassable for months. Only in to compile a DNA library of the 2001 did the hardy winter crews reserve’s flora and fauna. And finally yield to automated sta- Barnes says a comparison of tions. Year-round observations, Changbaishan’s ecosystems especially volcanic monitoring, with similar regions in Japan are critical, says Wang. Changbai and eastern North America, has been quiet since minor erup- “before further development tions in 1597, 1688, and 1702. renders them fragmented and “It’s due,” Wang says. Chinese domesticated, is of the highest spas are deemed within striking international priority.” distance of future lava flows. Such work would undergird an Once the snow melts, the high- Bald spots. Logging and clear-cutting for crops have broadened the mountain’s ambitious attempt to “balance the lands teem with researchers. The bare patches, indicated in pink on this Landsat map. competing interests of tourism Chinese Academy of Sciences and environmental protection,” (CAS) runs Changbai like a scientific boot ginseng plantations, causing erosion. And Wang says. Down the road, he says, saving camp, deploying an army of grad students and the removal of pine nuts impairs regenera- Changbai may mean extending the reserve’s young researchers each summer. The ringlike tion and forces animals such as the gray boundaries, which could require resettlement ecological zones that change with altitude are squirrel or the spotted nutcracker that feed of villagers. Support for such a drastic meas- a top draw. From the sky, the demarcation of on the nuts to find other food sources or die ure might get a boost if UNESCO declares forest types appears like a target, with the out. Local authorities, for the first time, have Changbai a World Heritage Site as expected in 2700-meter summit as the bull’s-eye. “It’s very banned the collection of pine nuts in the 2008, prompting a management and research unusual to have distinct ecological zones so reserve this year. As a result, says Shao, policy vetted by international experts. easily observable in one area,” says Wang. “they basically have to send people to guard Chinese officials hope to kick off coopera- Outside the reserve, he notes, one would have the forest” during the summer months. tion with in advance of World to hopscotch thousands of kilometers to see Heritage designation. “We’re very interested in all the forest zones on display at Changbai. working with them to restore the ecosystems,” Barnes and other U.S. ecologists have says Wang. Since spring, he explains, the made scientific pilgrimages to Changbai. “I Chinese government has been providing was very impressed with the beauty and “much more encouragement” for contacts with diversity of the area,” says Mark Harmon of North Korean researchers. “The quality of their Oregon State University, Corvallis. “The scientists is high,” says Dai, who in 2002 visited buzz of the bees in the basswood trees was North Korea’s lakeshore research station, at the SCIENCE just amazing.” With CAS colleagues, Hank bottom of a zigzagging staircase hundreds of Shugart of the University of Virginia, Char- meters long that’s visible from the Chinese lottesville, is using Changbaishan as a test side. And exploratory talks have begun on bed for modeling vegetation response to cli- involving U.S. researchers in projects with mate change across Eurasia. North Korea and China. Barnes, for one, is But scientific affection has not translated eager. North Korea’s forests “are one of the into robust protection. “Although no tree is least well known to Western ecologists of any in allowed to be logged within the reserve, bio- the temperate zone,” he says. diversity has been degraded due to other Wang should be in a position to host col- human activities,” says Guofan Shao of Pur- laborations in autumn 2007, when JCMAS due University in West Lafayette, Indiana, expects to complete construction of a new who has mapped forest zones at Changbai. research building. In the meantime, he and The most severe disturbances stem from the his colleagues are happy to see a treasure of harvesting of two valuable commodities: Reaching out. Wang Shaoxian hopes to work with two cultures finally getting the scientific ginseng roots and pine nuts. Wild ginseng is North Korean scientists to restore Changbai’s attention it deserves. embattled ecosystems. –RICHARD STONE

disappearing, so forest plots are cleared for STONE/ R. UNIVERSITY; SHAO/PURDUE CREDITS (TOP TO BOTTOM) GUOFAN

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