November 2, 2006, 5:02 AM CT
Serotonin Child Abuse Link
A research team observed that when baby rhesus monkeys endured high rates of maternal rejection and mild abuse in their first month of life, their brains often produced less serotonin, a chemical that transmits impulses in the brain. Low levels of serotonin are linked to anxiety and depression and impulsive aggression in both humans and monkeys.
Abused females who became abusive mothers in adulthood had lower serotonin in their brains than abused females who did not become abusive parents, the research showed.
Because the biological make up of humans and monkeys is quite similar, the findings from the monkey research could be valuable in understanding human child abuse, said Dario Maestripieri, Associate Professor in Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago.
"This research could have important implications for humans because we do not fully understand why some abused children become abusive parents and others don't," Maestripieri said. The research suggests that therapys with drugs that increase brain serotonin early in an abused child's life could reduce the likelihood that the child will grow up to become abusive, Maestripieri said.
Maestripieri is lead author of a paper reporting the research, "Early Maternal Rejection Affects the Development of Monoaminergic Systems and Adult Abusive Parenting in Rhesus Macaques" reported in the current issue of Behavioral Neuroscience.........
Posted by: JoAnn Permalink Source
November 2, 2006, 4:59 AM CT
Intact Tonsils Triple Risk Of Recurrent Strep Throat
Children with recurrent strep throat whose tonsils have not been removed are over three times more likely to develop subsequent episodes of strep throat than children who undergo tonsillectomy, as per a Mayo Clinic study reported in the Nov. 2 issue of Laryngoscope.
"These results suggest that tonsillectomy is a useful treatment for treating children with recurrent strep throat infections," says Laura Orvidas, M.D., Mayo Clinic ear, nose and throat surgeon and senior study investigator. "It should decrease the amount of infections experienced by this subset of children and therefore diminish the number of missed school days and hopefully improve overall quality of life".
Dr. Orvidas and his colleagues conducted a population-based retrospective cohort study of children between ages 4 and 16 who received three or more diagnoses of strep-correlation tonsillitis or pharyngitis at least one month apart, within 12 months. Within this group, children who subsequently underwent a tonsillectomy were compared with an age- and sex-matched sample of children who had not had a tonsillectomy. The date of the tonsillectomy for the matched pair was defined as the index date. All strep infections were recorded for each of these two groups of children.
The study population comprised 290 children (145 who received a tonsillectomy and 145 who did not). In the tonsillectomy group, 74 children experienced at least one strep infection after the index date and before age 16. Among those who did not receive a tonsillectomy, 122 experienced at least one strep infection during the follow-up. The time before first subsequent strep infection was much longer for those who had a tonsillectomy, a median of 1.1 years as in comparison to 0.6 years for children whose tonsils had not been removed. By one year after the index date, the cumulative occurence rate of a strep infection was 23.1 percent among the children who had a tonsillectomy in comparison to 58.5 percent among the children who had not.........
Posted by: JoAnn Permalink Source
November 1, 2006, 4:57 AM CT
Poor Readers Have Higher Risk Of Suicide
Teenagers with reading problems are at significantly higher risk for suicide and for dropping out of school than typical readers, as per a research studyby Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center researchers.
"In our study, poor readers were three times more likely than typical readers to consider or attempt suicide and six times more likely to drop out of school," said lead author Stephanie Sergent Daniel, Ph.D. "Educators and parents should be aware of the risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior among adolescents with reading problems."
The results, reported today in the recent issue of the Journal of Learning Disabilities, are from a study of 188 students recruited from six public high schools at age 15. They were followed for a mean of 3.3 years.
Scientists initially screened 1,074 students and identified a sub-group willing to participate in the long-term study. From this group, they recruited a group of poor readers and a group of typical readers that were matched for gender and race.
Standard educational tests were used to measure single-word reading ability, one of several skills involved in reading. Students scoring in the lowest 18 percent were considered poor readers - a cutoff usually used to diagnose dyslexia. In addition, each student and his primary caretaker were interviewed by master's level trained research clinicians to assess psychiatric disorders and suicidal behaviors. The median length between interviews for students and parents was twelve months.........
Posted by: JoAnn Permalink Source
October 30, 2006, 8:15 PM CT
Dad Or Mom?
In families with two working parents, fathers had greater impact than mothers on their children's language development between ages 2 and 3, as per a research studyby the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Frank Porter Graham (FPG) Child Development Institute and UNC's School of Education.
Scientists videotaped pairs of parents and their 2-year-old children in their homes during playtime. The children whose fathers used more diverse vocabularies had greater language development when they were tested one year later. However, the mothers' vocabulary did not significantly affect a child's language skills.
"Most prior studies on early language development focused on mothers," said Nadya Panscofar, a graduate research assistant and an author of the study. "These findings underscore that for two-parent, dual earner families, fathers should be included in all efforts to improve language development and school readiness".
Panscofar and Dr. Lynne Vernon-Feagans, the William C. Friday distinguished professor of Child and Family Studies in the School of Education and a faculty fellow at FPG, conducted the study in Pennsylvania as part of the Penn State Health and Development Project when both were affiliated with that university.
The study appears in the online version of the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology. It will appear in the November print issue of that publication.........
Posted by: Janet Permalink Source
October 27, 2006, 5:08 AM CT
Videoconferencing In Pediatric Oncology
An article in the January 2007 issue of the Pediatric Blood & Cancer examines the use of videoconferencing between industrialized and developing countries as a way of improving patient care. The journal is available online via Wiley InterScience at http://www.interscience.wiley.com/journal/pbc.
Pediatric oncology has seen vast improvements in survival rates in industrialized countries over the last several decades, but developing nations are still lagging behind, despite the fact that up to 85 percent of childhood malignancies occur in these countries. Obstacles to advances in the development of pediatric oncology programs include poverty, malnutrition, lack of education, and compliance. Additional factors are a shortage of pediatric oncologist specialists, a lack of cross communication between different disciplines, which leads to delayed and improper referrals, and the tendency to seek multiple second opinions due to a distrust of the quality of available medical care.
Efforts to improve medical care in developing countries include twinning programs that involve the exchange of personnel between participating institutions, a practice that is time consuming and expensive. Telemedicine, another way of communicating and distributing information, is already being used in industrialized countries for educational purposes, second opinions and quality assurance in many fields, but there are few reports of its impact in developing countries.........
Posted by: Janet Permalink Source
October 26, 2006, 5:13 AM CT
3-D monitor vision test for children
A new random-dot stereotest using a 3D display and infrared oculography has been found to objectively assess stereopsis in children older than three years as per an article reported in the November 2006 issue of Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science (IOVS).
The study involved 56 children, 38 with various visual impairments and 18 with normal vision. Study participants were seated on their mother's lap or alone with their heads stabilized by a chin and front rest. Unlike many other tests, this new 3D monitor stereotest does not require disassociating glasses that children often find cumbersome. The random dot stimulus was presented on an autostereoscopic display which allows viewing of full-color 3D images. The stimulus recognition was objectively assessed using infrared photo-oculography. The overall accuracy of the test was found to be 95 percent.
If applicable to preverbal children, the new test may permit study of the development of stereovision under natural conditions since no glasses are necessary to see the stimuli. The new test may be useful for the objective measurement of the sensory outcome following the therapy of ophthalmic disorders in the pediatric age group. It is also a potential substitute for the Lang I and II Test and the Radom-dot E Test, which require verbal capabilities from the subject tested.........
Posted by: Mike Permalink Source
October 25, 2006, 4:47 AM CT
Twins More Likely To Have Premature Menopause
Twins are more likely to have a premature menopause than other women, as per research published on line today (Wednesday 25 October) in Europe's leading reproductive medicine journal, Human Reproduction[1].
In a study of more than 800 Australian and UK twin pairs, lead by Dr Roger Gosden, Professor of Reproductive Biology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York, premature ovarian failure was between three and five times greater when measured at age 40 and age 45 than in the general population. Ovarian failure before the age of 40 normally affects only around one woman in a hundred.
The finding applied whether or not the twins were identical (monozygotic) or non-identical (dizygotic). It confirms tentative prior data on premature ovarian failure (POF) in non-identical twins, but it is the first time it has been established in identical twins as well.
However, there were twins in the study where the menopausal ages were very different - a disparity of more than 20 years in a few cases. It was disparity in menopausal ages among twins that led to this study. First, it was prompted by the recent case of ovarian transplantation between 24-year-old identical twins at the Infertility Center in St. Louis carried out by this study's co-author Dr Sherman Silber. One twin had undergone unexplained POF at age 14, but this was reversed through ovarian tissue transplantation from her sister, and she later conceived. Subsequently, several more identical twin pairs came forward for possible therapy and the scientists received anecdotal information about other cases of disparity in menopausal ages among twins.........
Posted by: Emily Permalink Source
October 17, 2006, 9:26 PM CT
Childhood Cancer Survivors May Have Low Birth Weight Children
Female childhood cancer survivors may face pregnancy problems, including early deliveries and low birth weight children, as per a research studyin the October 19 Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
New therapies for childhood cancer patients have increased survival, but a number of researchers are concerned about the long-term effects of the therapys, especially for patients exposed to radiation and chemotherapy.
Lisa B. Signorello, Sc.D., of the International Epidemiology Institute in Rockville, Md., and his colleagues assessed the records of 1,264 female participants in the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study and their 2,201 children. They compared them with 601 cancer-free siblings of survivors and their 1,175 children. The authors assessed possible long-term effects from therapy, such as preterm births, low birth weight, and having babies who were small for their gestational age.
The authors observed that survivors' children were more likely than those of siblings to be born early or underweight. The risk was highest when a survivor had their uterus exposed to pelvic radiation as a child.
"Radiotherapy to the pelvis may raise the risks of both preterm birth and restricted fetal growth," they write.
In an accompanying editorial, Leslie Schover, Ph.D., of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, discusses the study and the overall interest in preserving fertility for childhood cancer survivors. "Given the complex terrain our young survivors need to traverse, we should design patient and professional education materials that map out the paths to making informed decisions".........
Posted by: Emily Permalink Source
October 17, 2006, 4:43 AM CT
New Hope For Children With Leukemia
Clinicians at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have successfully demonstrated an improved technique for blood stem cell transplantations in children that shows promise for those most likely to fail standard therapy for leukemia.
The St. Jude technique allows blood stem cells to come from parents or unmatched adult siblings; and it avoids the aggressive, toxic therapys that commonly must accompany the transplant. This allows the majority of patients with leukemia or non-malignant blood disorders to receive a transplant, as per Gregory Hale, M.D., St. Jude Bone Marrow Transplantation Division interim chief. A report on this work appears in the prepublication edition of the British Journal of Haematology.
A clinical trial of this technique demonstrated that it accelerated recovery of the immune system in recipients and shortened the duration of immune deficiency during the early post-transplant period, reducing the risk of infections. The immune system recovery included not only T and B lymphocytes, the major cells genetically programmed to attack specific targets, but also natural killer cells, a critical first-response army of cells that acts as a quick-strike force against a wide variety of targets.
"The overall success of this procedure suggests it holds promise for children who are likely to fail standard therapy for leukemia because they have therapy-resistant disease and no matched donor," Hale said.........
Posted by: Janet Permalink Source
October 15, 2006, 7:15 PM CT
Same Gene For Cleft Lip And Skin Biology
Following up on an earlier discovery that a gene called IRF6 is involved in the common birth defect cleft lip and palate, scientists at the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and their colleagues have identified the function of the gene. Their latest findings, published online Oct. 15 in Nature Genetics, reveal an unexpected role for IRF6 in the growth and development of skin cells, a discovery that may have implications for wound healing and cancer research.
In 2002, Brian Schutte, Ph.D., UI associate professor of pediatrics and nursing, and Jeff Murray, M.D., UI professor of pediatrics, pediatric dentistry and biological sciences, and the Roy J. Carver Chair in Perinatal Health, led a study showing that mutations in IRF6 cause Van der Woude syndrome (VWS), a rare, dominantly inherited form of cleft lip and palate. Subsequently, the scientists observed that this gene also is mutated in 10 to 15 percent of the more common, so-called non-syndromic cases of cleft lip and palate. Cleft lip and palate, where the lip or both the lip and palate (roof of the mouth) fail to close, occurs in approximately one of every 1,000 babies.
In order to determine the function of this gene, the scientists created mice that lacked IRF6. These mice had very abnormal skin as well as a cleft palate. Detailed analysis of the mice revealed that IRF6 regulates the proliferation and differentiation of keratinocytes -- the main cell type in the epidermis or outer layer of skin. Keratinocytes also provide a protective barrier around the mouth, gut, liver, lung, kidney and other internal organs.........
Posted by: JoAnn Permalink Source
