April 13, 2008, 9:05 PM CT

Autism and muscle weakness

Some kids with autism may have a genetic defect that affects the muscles, according to research that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology 60th Anniversary Annual Meeting in Chicago, April 1219, 2008.

The study looked at 37 children with autism spectrum disorders who were evaluated for mitochondrial disease,.

which causes muscle weakness and prevents a child from being able to participate in physical activities and.

sports. Mitochondrial disease occurs when genetic mutations affect the mitochondria, or the part of the cell that releases energy.

A total of 24 of the children, or 65 percent, had defects in the process by which cells produce and synthesize energy in the muscles, or oxidative phosphorylation defects in the skeletal muscles.

Most children with autism spectrum disorders do not have recognizable abnormalities when you look at.

genetic tests, imaging, and metabolic tests, said study author John Shoffner, MD, owner of Medical.

Neurogenetics, LLC in Atlanta, GA, and member of the American Academy of Neurology. But a subset of these children does have significant defects in this area. Identifying this defect is important for understanding how genes that produce autism spectrum disorders impact the function of the mitochondria......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 10, 2008, 9:01 PM CT

Language Development in Infants

Uncover how the brains of infants distinguish differences in sounds and it may become possible to correct language problems even before children start to speak, sparing them the difficulties that come from struggling with language.

New studies conducted by Professor of Neuroscience April Benasich and her Infancy Studies Laboratory at Rutgers University in Newark are revealing new and exciting clues about how infant brains begin to acquire language and paving the way for correcting language difficulties at a time when the brain is most able to change.

Benasich and her lab were the first to determine that how efficiently a baby processes differences between rapidly occurring sounds is the best predictor of future language problems. Using methods developed by Benasich and her lab, it can be determined as early as three to six months whether a baby will struggle with language development.

About 5 to 10 percent of all children beginning school are estimated to have language-learning impairments (LLI) leading to reading, speaking and comprehension problems, as per Benasich. In families with a history of LLI, 40 to 50 percent of children are likely to have a similar problem. A number of of these children go on to develop dyslexia.

Using several novel methods, including dense array EEG/ERP recordings, Benasich and her lab are able to analyze EEG, ERPs and the proportion of gamma power in infant brains. The dense sensor array allows the scientists to gently measure a full range of brain activity. Those measurements are obtained by placing a soft bonnet of sensors, resembling a hairnet with lots of little sponges, on a baby's head and then having the infant listen to different series of rapid tone sequences......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 1, 2008, 9:10 PM CT

The future of children's health

Can diseases such as Alzheimers, obesity and diabetes be prevented before birth? As per Jonathan D. Gitlin, M.D., the Helene B. Roberson Professor of Pediatrics and Professor of Genetics at the Washington University School of Medicine, researching whether diseases that strike adults are already genetically encoded in individuals while still in the womb, may enable physicians to one day address and prevent diseases in infancy.

In a talk entitled Child Health Research in the 21st Century: Obstacles and Opportunities, Dr. Gitlin, who is also scientific director of the Childrens Discovery Institute, will address why, despite substantial investments in both the academic and private sectors, the health status of our nation remains dismal especially the health and wellness of our children.

Childrens health has been pushed aside, states Dr. Gitlin. The amount of money currently dedicated to research that could identify key factors leading to diseases both in childhood and later in their adult lives is very small in comparison to the funding for adult onset diseases such as heart disease or cancer. Dr. Gitlin says researchers need to redirect their thinking to find a way to identify and ultimately offset diseases in children that may affect them during the later part of life, such as obesity, depression or even drug and alcohol addiction......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

March 18, 2008, 8:30 PM CT

Spring training for parents?

As cries of play ball ring out this spring, they undoubtedly will be followed by complaints of anxiety and stress from young athletes wanting to quit sports.

Parents and coaches can make youth sports a fun, learning experience or a nightmare, as per sport psychology experts at the University of Washington. But to achieve the former, sports officials and organizations must provide more training programs, particularly for parents, as per Frank Smoll and Ron Smith, who have been studying the youth sport experience and designing programs to improve it for a quarter of a century.

There is no problem in getting coaches to attend educational workshops. The challenge is convincing organizations to offer parent workshops and getting parents to come, said Smoll. A number of youth sport organizations are saying, Yes, we are interested in offering these programs, but thats it. They are not delivering them to parents.

There has been a drive in the last 20 years to teach coaches how to create a healthy psychological environment for young athletes. A culture has been created and there is an expectation that coaches will receive training. Unfortunately, too a number of moms and pops are all too willing to assume they dont have a role in youth sports. However, they should support what trained coaches are trying to do. Parents and coaches working together are a powerful combination, he said......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

March 7, 2008, 5:29 AM CT

Breakthrough in birth-defect research

Researchers have discovered how to prevent certain craniofacial disorders in what could ultimately lead to at-risk babies being treated in the womb.

University of Manchester researchers, working with colleagues at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas, have successfully treated mice with Treacher Collins syndrome a rare genetic disorder characterised by underdeveloped facial bones, absent or deformed ears and occasionally cleft palate.

The team had previously observed that the condition, which affects one in 10,000 individuals, was caused by a mutation in a single gene called TCOF1. They later discovered that this mutation causes cells, known as neural crest cells, to die prematurely in the early stages of pregnancy resulting in the facial anomalies.

Now, writing in the journal Nature Medicine, the scientists have shown that preventing the neural crest cells from dying allowed mice with the Treacher Collins gene to develop normally. The principle, say the authors, could also be applied to other single-gene birth defects.

This is the first time that a congenital defect has been successfully treated and provides genuine hope within a realistic timeframe of one day preventing these conditions in humans, said Professor Mike Dixon in Manchesters Faculty of Life Sciences......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

March 4, 2008, 4:17 PM CT

Sticky blood protein yields clues to autism

A number of children with autism have elevated blood levels of serotonin a chemical with strong links to mood and anxiety. But what relevance this hyperserotonemia has for autism has remained a mystery.

New research by Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers provides a physical basis for this phenomenon, which may have profound implications for the origin of some autism-associated deficits.

In an advance online publication in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Ana Carneiro, Ph.D., and his colleagues report that a well-known protein found in blood platelets, integrin beta3, physically associates with and regulates the serotonin transporter (SERT), a protein that controls serotonin availability.

Autism, a prevalent childhood disorder, involves deficits in language, social communication and prominent rigid-compulsive traits. Serotonin has long been suspected to play a role in autism since elevated blood serotonin and genetic variations in the SERT have been associated with autism.

Alterations in brain serotonin have also been linked to anxiety, depression and alcoholism; antidepressants that block SERT (known as SSRIs, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) block SERTs ability to sweep synapses clean of serotonin.

Working in the lab of Randy Blakely, Ph.D., Carneiro was searching for proteins that interact with SERT that might contribute to disorders where serotonin signaling is altered......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

March 3, 2008, 8:41 PM CT

Restricting Kids' Video Time Reduces Obesity

Entrenched sedentary behavior such as watching television and playing computer video games has been the bane for years of parents of overweight children and physicians trying to help those children lose pounds.

There has been little scientifically based research on the effect of limiting those activities, however.

University at Buffalo scientists now have shown in a randomized trial that by using a device that automatically restricted video-viewing time, parents reduced their children's video time by an average of 17.5 hours a week and lowered their body-mass index (BMI) significantly by the end of the 2-year study.

In contrast, children in the control group, whose video time was monitored, but not restricted, reduced their viewing time by only 5 hours per week.

Results of the study appear in the current issue (March 2008) of the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine.

"Our controlled experiment provided a test of whether reducing access to television and computer time led to a reduction in BMI," said Leonard Epstein, UB Distinguished Professor in the departments of Pediatrics, Health Behavior and Social and Preventive Medicine and first author on the study.

"Results showed that watching television and playing computer games can lead to obesity by reducing the amount of time that children are physically active, or by increasing the amount of food they consume as they as engaged in these sedentary behaviors"......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

March 2, 2008, 9:05 PM CT

How to Say "No" to Alcohol Advertising

Teens who can recognize and resist the persuasive tactics used in alcohol ads are less likely to succumb to alcohol advertising and peer pressure to drink.

The results of a three-year study of inner-city middle school students by Weill Cornell Medical College scientists appears online in the journal Addictive Behaviors (April print edition). Prior research has shown the correlation between advertising and adolescent alcohol, use as well as the influence of peers in promoting adolescent alcohol use.

"There are a number of pressures on teens to drink. One very powerful influence is advertising - from television to billboards, it's everywhere. Our study found their ability to be critically aware of advertising as well as their ability to resist peer pressure are both key skills for avoiding alcohol," says Dr. Jennifer A. Epstein, lead author and assistant professor of public health in the Division of Prevention and Health Behavior at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Results were taken from surveys of over 2,000 predominantly African-American adolescents from 13 inner-city junior high schools in New York City over three years. The study observed that seventh graders better able to be critically aware of advertising - something the study terms "media resistance skills" - were significantly less likely to drink alcohol as ninth graders......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

March 2, 2008, 8:45 PM CT

Mouse model for speed drug hunt

Frustrated by the slow pace of new drug development for a condition that causes pediatric brain tumors, a neurologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis decided to try to fine-tune the animal models used to test new drugs.

Instead of studying one mouse model of the disease causing the brain tumors, the laboratory of David Gutmann, M.D., Ph.D., the Donald O. Schnuck Family Professor of Neurology, reviewed three. They "auditioned" the three models to see which was the best match for neurofibromatosis 1, a genetic condition that increases the risk of brain tumors and afflicts more than 100,000 people in the United States.

Animal models have long been used to explore the basic physiology underlying disease and to tentatively try out new remedies, but Gutmann believes that creating a tighter match between the animal models and the human disorder will allow more extensive and more accurate preclinical testing of potential therapies.

"If you think of how we move drugs from testing in the laboratory to testing in humans, this is an exciting step that's likely to speed the translation from bench to bedside," says Gutmann, the senior author of a report in the March 1 Cancer Research. "With more extensive preclinical testing in the mice, we can make sure a new drug is reaching its target protein in tumor cells, we can learn whether the drug is killing tumor cells or shutting off their growth, and we can get some indication of whether the drug is likely to have an adverse effect on the developing brain."........ Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

February 26, 2008, 10:30 PM CT

Depressed Teens Respond Well To Combination Therapy

More than half of teenagers with the most debilitating forms of depression that do not respond to therapy with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) show improvement after switching to a different medicine combined with cognitive behavioral treatment, scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center and their colleagues in a multicenter study have found.

Dr. Graham Emslie, professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at UT Southwestern and chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at Children's Medical Center Dallas, was a principal investigator in the study appearing in the Feb. 27 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"If an adolescent hasn't responded to an initial therapy, go ahead and switch therapys," said Dr. Emslie. "Our results should encourage clinicians to not let an adolescent stay on the same medicine and still suffer." The 334 study participants suffered from depression on average for about two years. The teenagers involved exhibited moderate to severe major depressive disorder, a number of with suicidal ideation. Historically, these types of patients have the worst therapy outcomes.

The scientists observed that nearly 55 percent of teenagers who failed to respond to a class of antidepressant medications known as SSRIs, responded when they switched to a different antidepressant and participated in cognitive behavioral treatment, which examines thinking patterns to modify behavior......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source