May 17, 2007, 5:26 AM CT

Hyperactivity and academic achievement

Children who are hyperactive tend to do worse academically than their peers who are not hyperactive. Eventhough the relationship between such behaviors as overactivity, impulsivity, and inattentiveness in children and poor achievement in math, reading, language, and other areas has been well documented, little is known about the reasons for this link. New research shows that the tie may be due to genetic influences.

The study, conducted by scientists at Boston University and at the Social Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry in London, appears in the May/June 2007 issue of the journal Child Development.

The scientists examined the extent to which common genetic and environmental factors operate across hyperactivity and achievement in nearly 2,000 7-year-old pairs of twins taking part in the U.K.-based Twins Early Development Study. In the study, both parents and teachers provided ratings of twins' hyperactive behavior problems (e.g., restlessness, fidgeting, distractibility, impulsivity, and attention span). Academic achievement was based on teacher assessments of English and mathematics skills conducted at the end of the first year of primary school (equivalent to first grade in the United States).

Based on the study's results, the scientists concluded that hyperactive behavior and poor academic achievement are linked primarily because of common genetic influences. They posited two possibilities for how this could happen: It could be that some of the genes that influence hyperactivity also influence academic achievement. Or it could be an indirect relationship, as a result of genes influencing one behavior, which, in turn, influences another; for example, it may be that behaviors linked to hyperactivity may make it harder for children to learn in the classroom......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

May 7, 2007, 10:35 PM CT

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Not Common In Childhood

Potentially traumatic events are common in children but do not typically result in post-traumatic stress symptoms or disorder, as per a report in the recent issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a unique psychiatric diagnosis because it requires an initiating event, such as war, rape, natural disaster or serious illness, as per background information in the article. In children, the list of events that could lead to PTSD includes a parent being sent to prison, sudden separation from a loved one and learning of a traumatic event occurring to a loved one.

William E. Copeland, Ph.D., and his colleagues at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C., conducted annual interviews with 1,420 children from age 9, 11 or 13 through age 16. Between 1993 and 2000, participants and their parents were interviewed in separate rooms and asked about traumatic events that may have occurred in the prior year. In addition, they reported any symptoms of post-traumatic stress that the children displayed, including compulsive behaviors to suppress memories, panic attacks and engaging in dangerous activities.

More than two-thirds of the children reportedly experienced at least one traumatic event by age 16, including 30.8 with exposure to one event and 37 percent to multiple events. The most common events were witnessing or learning about a trauma that affected othersknown as vicarious events......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

May 6, 2007, 5:13 PM CT

Nearly 28,000 US infants died in 2004

Preterm birth contributes to more than one-third of all infant deaths, as per the National Vital Statistics report released recently.

Eventhough the national infant mortality rate is the lowest it's been since the U.S. started collecting data a century ago, there's been little change recently 6.78 deaths for every 1,000 live births in 2004 in comparison to 6.89 in 2000, the National Center for Health Statistics report found.

The report, "Infant Mortality Statistics from the 2004 Period Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set" includes a new analysis tracking preterm birth-related infant deaths. The analysis, first reported in the October 2006 edition of Pediatrics, found preterm birth contributes to nearly twice as a number of infant deaths within the first year of life than previously estimated.

"We have long known babies born too soon face a number of developmental challenges even death," said Joann Petrini, Ph.D., director of the March of Dimes Perinatal Data Center. "This closer look at preterm birth gives us a better understanding of the impact of prematurity on infant survival and provides insights into the factors that have contributed to the lack of improvement in the U.S. infant mortality rate".

Preterm related deaths accounted for more than 10,000 of the nearly 28,000 infant deaths in 2004, as per the NCHS. Birth defects remain the leading cause of infant death, followed by prematurity, as per official reporting systems. But, using this new classification, premature birth would be the most frequent cause of infant death. The traditional methods cannot accurately gauge the true impact of preterm birth on the infant mortality rate, the NCHS said......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

May 6, 2007, 4:41 PM CT

A frown or a smile?

When we have a conversation with someone, we not only hear what they say, we see what they say. Eyes can smolder or twinkle. Gazes can be direct or shifty. Reading these facial expressions gives context and meaning to the words we hear.

In a report to be presented May 5 at the International Meeting for Autism Research in Seatlle, scientists from UCLA will show that children with autism cant do this. They hear and they see, of course, but the areas of the brain that normally respond to such visual cues simply do not respond.

Led by Mari Davies, a UCLA graduate student in psychology, and Susan Bookheimer, a professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, the research compared brain activity between 16 typically developing children and 16 high-functioning children with autism. While undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), both groups were shown a series of faces depicting angry, fearful, happy and neutral expressions. In half the faces, the eyes were averted; with the other half, the faces stared back at the children.

With the typically developing group, the scientists found significant differences in activity in a part of the brain called the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), which is known to play a role in evaluating emotions. While these children looked at the direct-gaze faces, the VLPFC became active; with the averted-gaze pictures, it quieted down. In contrast, the autistic children showed no activity in this region of the brain whether they were looking at faces with a direct or an indirect gaze......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 30, 2007, 6:59 PM CT

Study shows children less prone to false memories

In the 1980's, a spate of high profile child abuse convictions gave way to heightened concern about false memory reports given by children. Take, for example, the case of Kelly Michaels, a preschool teacher who was convicted on 115 counts of sexual abuse based on the testimony of 20 of her pupils. After serving seven years of her 47 year sentence, Michaels' conviction was overturned after the techniques used to interview the children were shown to be coercive and highly suggestive.

Since then, a sizeable literature on children's false memories has accumulated and until recently, the picture that had emerged was quite consistent: false memories of events were found to decrease with age throughout childhood and adolescence. In other words, as we grow into adulthood, our memory accuracy improves.

However, psychology experts Charles Brainerd and Valerie Reyna of Cornell University think that the relationship between age and memory accuracy may not be so simple. Drawing upon fuzzy-trace theory the popular psychological theory that humans encode information on a continuum from verbatim to "fuzzy" traces that convey a general meaning Brainerd and Reyna predicted that false memories may actually increase with age under certain circumstances. In other words, adults would have less accurate memories than children......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 23, 2007, 5:26 PM CT

Progress On MS research and care

'Pediatric Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders' has just been published by the International Pediatric MS Study Group as a supplement to the journal Neurology. The Group was founded by the National MS Society (USA) to foster global cooperation in studying and addressing the challenges linked to what is generally thought of as an adult neurological disease when it occurs in a non-adult population. It is estimated that there are at least 8,000 10,000 children who have MS and another 10,000-15,000 who have experienced what may be symptoms of MS.

The compendium that offers nine peer-evaluated papers describes the current state of clinical care, research and knowledge correlation to pediatric MS and lays out research and clinical directions for the future. Until recently, there was little attention or understanding about the occurrence of MS in children and its management.

The compendium of papers (Neurology 2007; 68 {Suppl 2} http://www.neurology.org/content/vol68/16_suppl_2/#PREFACE) includes the first proposed consensus definitions for pediatric MS and related disorders. It also reviews published research on topics such as the use of MRI brain scans in diagnosis, and the psychosocial impacts of MS including issues correlation to school, social milestones and family life......... Posted by: Daniel      Read more         Source

April 21, 2007, 8:39 AM CT

Monkeys' ability to reflect on their thoughts

New research from Columbia's Primate Cognition Laboratory has shown for the first time that monkeys could acquire meta-cognitive skills: the ability to reflect about their thoughts and to assess their performance.

The study was a collaborative effort between Herbert Terrace, Columbia professor of psychology & psychiatry, and director of its Primate Cognition Laboratory, and two graduate students, Lisa Son now professor of psychology at Barnard College and UCLA postdoctoral researcher Nate Kornell.

The study, which appears in the recent issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, was designed to show that a monkey could express its confidence in its answers to multiple-choice questions about its memory based on the amount of imaginary currency it was willing to wager. Their experiment was derived from the observation that children often make pretend bets to assert that they know the answer to some question. As per Son, "the ability to reflect on one's knowledge has always been thought of as exclusively human. We designed a task to determine if a non-human primate could similarly learn to express its confidence about its knowledge by making large or small wagers."

In the experiment, two monkeys were trained to play a video game that would test their ability to remember a particular photograph while also allowing them to make a large or a small bet. Ultimately, this wager would reflect the monkey's perception of their memory accuracy......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 19, 2007, 7:38 PM CT

Novel transfusion strategy for pediatric patients

In its April 19th, 2007 edition, the New England Journal (NEJM) published an article about the findings of a multi-center randomized clinical trial that compared transfusion strategies for patients in pediatric intensive care units. The study, led by Dr. Jacques Lacroix, a full professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the Universit de Montral and a pediatric intensivist as well as researcher at the CHU Sainte-Justine, a university hospital center, was conducted in 637 children in 19 intensive care units in Canada, England, Belgium and the USA.

Determining the Transfusion Requirements of Pediatric Patients

Before this study, entitled TRIPICU (Transfusion Requirements for Patients in Pediatric Intensive Care Units), no precise data were available to guide intensive care specialists when deciding about whether or not to transfuse critically ill children. In fact, up until now, the optimal threshold for transfusion using packed red blood cells in children admitted to intensive care was not known.

A prior study carried out in adult patients suggested that a restrictive transfusion strategy could provide a better outcome than a liberal strategy. However, the study was conducted previous to the introduction of new practices involving the systematic removal of leukocytes from packed red blood cells before storage......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 16, 2007, 9:16 PM CT

Strong Marriage And Temperamental Baby

Couples with infants who are especially fussy or difficult typically do just fine as parents - as long as they have a strong marital relationship.

A new study observed that a couple's relationship with each other was key in determining how they reacted as parents when faced with a temperamental baby.

"When couples with a supportive marital relationship have a difficult baby, they tend to rise to the challenge," said Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, co-author of the study and assistant professor of human development and family science at Ohio State University.

"Couples who don't have a strong relationship with each other are more likely to undermine each other and get into conflicts when they have to deal with a especially challenging baby".

Schoppe-Sullivan conducted the study with Sarah Mangelsdorf and Geoffrey Brown of the University of Illinois, and Margaret Szewczyk Sokolowski of Minneapolis. Their results were published in a recent issue of the journal Infant Behavior & Development.

Schoppe-Sullivan said there has been surprisingly little study about how the characteristics of an infant can affect how couples interact as parents - what scientists call the "coparenting relationship".

While there have been studies examining how mothers themselves deal with difficult babies, this study focused on how mothers and fathers work together as parents......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 11, 2007, 10:27 PM CT

Key Player In Embryonic Muscle Development

Muscle fibers are large cells that contain a number of nuclei. They begin, like all animal cells, as naive embryonic cells. These cells differentiate, producing intermediate cells called myoblasts that are now destined to become muscle. New myoblasts then seek out other myoblasts, and when they find each other, they stick together like best friends. In the final stage of muscle fiber development, the cell membranes of attached myoblasts open up and fuse together, forming one large, unified cell.

How myoblasts identify other myoblasts and how they cling together had been established, but the way that the cell membranes fuse into one has remained a mystery. Now, a study by Weizmann Institute researchers has shed light on this mystery. The study was carried out by research student Rada Massarwa and lab technician Shari Carmon under the guidance of Dr. Eyal Schejter and Prof. Ben-Zion Shilo of the Institute's Molecular Genetics Department, with help from Dr. Vera Shinder of the Electron Microscopy Unit. The cells' system for identifying other myoblasts and sticking to them consists of protein molecules that poke through the outer cell membrane one end pointing out and the other extending into the body of the cell. These recognition proteins anchor the cells together, but what makes myoblasts open their doors to each other and merge into one cell?........ Posted by: Scott      Read more         Source