Larry Minikes 4/4/22 Larry Minikes 4/4/22

Babies exposed to cannabis in the womb may be at risk for obesity, high blood sugar

Both CBD and THC put children at risk despite CBD being marketed as having health benefits

March 31, 2022

Science Daily/The Endocrine Society

Cannabis use among pregnant women is on the rise and may be associated with negative health outcomes in children, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

A 2016 study in Colorado revealed that up to 22% of pregnant women had detectable levels of cannabinoids in their body. Women who use cannabis, both tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), during pregnancy could be putting their child at risk for low birth weight and behavioral problems. Exposure to cannabinoids may also increase the child's future risk of obesity and high blood sugar.

Part of CBD's popularity is that it is marketing as being "nonpsychoactive," and that consumers can reap health benefits from the plant without the high. CBD is advertised as providing relief for anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. It is also marketed to promote sleep.

"We found that cannabis use during pregnancy was linked to increased fat mass percentage and fasting glucose levels in 5-year-old children," said Brianna Moore, Ph.D., of the Colorado School of Public Health in Aurora, Colo. "We would encourage women to refrain from using any cannabis while pregnant or breastfeeding to minimize adverse health effects in the offspring."

The researchers studied urine samples from 103 pregnant women, 15% of whom had detectable levels of cannabinoids (such as THC and CBD) in their urine. These mothers' 5-year-old children had higher fat mass and fasting glucose levels compared to children who were not exposed to cannabis during pregnancy.

"More studies are needed to understand how exposure to different cannabinoids during pregnancy may impact the offspring," Moore said.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220331101458.htm

Larry Minikes 9/4/19 Larry Minikes 9/4/19

Teens 'mocked' by their parents are at greater risk for bullying, victimization

July 9, 2019

Science Daily/Florida Atlantic University

Unique longitudinal study explores understudied form of adolescent parenting -- derisiveness

New evidence suggests that adolescent bullying and victimization may have origins in the home. Many bullies have parents who are hostile, punitive and rejecting. Researchers from Florida Atlantic University's Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, and Uppsala University in Sweden, have identified another type of parenting that contributes to peer difficulties: those who direct derision and contempt at their children.

Derisive parents use demeaning or belittling expressions that humiliate and frustrate the child, without any obvious provocation from the child. These parents respond to child engagement with criticism, sarcasm, put-downs and hostility, and rely on emotional and physical coercion to obtain compliance.

The study, published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, emphasizes the emotional underpinnings of peer difficulties. The researchers followed 1,409 children for three consecutive years from grades 7 to 9 (ages 13-15 years).

Findings show that derisive parenting fosters dysregulated anger in adolescent children. Dysregulated anger is indicative of difficulties regulating emotion, which typically result in negative emotions, verbal and physical aggression, and hostility. Increases in dysregulated anger, in turn, place adolescents at greater risk for bullying and victimization, and for becoming bully-victims (bullies who also are victimized by other bullies).

The latter finding is noteworthy given that past research indicates that bully-victims are at the greatest risk for poor mental health, behavioral difficulties, and suicidal thoughts when compared to "pure" victims, "pure" bullies, or non-victims. Identification of the family-specific origins of bully-victim status may be a key step in limiting or preventing such poor outcomes.

Importantly, these findings held after controlling for parenting behaviors implicated in child adjustment, such as warmth, control and physical punishment. This study suggests that derisive behavior is a unique form of parenting that increases the risks that adolescent children will adopt inappropriate anger management strategies that increases their risk for peer difficulties.

"Inappropriate interpersonal responses appear to spread from parents to children, where they spawn peer difficulties. Specifically, derisive parenting precipitates a cycle of negative affect and anger between parents and adolescents, which ultimately leads to greater adolescent bullying and victimization," said Brett Laursen, Ph.D., co-author and a professor of psychology in FAU's Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. "Our study is important because it provides a more complete understanding of how parents' belittling and critical interactions with adolescents thwart their ability to maintain positive relationships with peers."

Daniel J. Dickson, Ph.D., Department of Psychology at Concordia University, is the senior author of the study.

"Implications from our study are far-reaching: practitioners and parents should be informed of the potential long-term costs of sometimes seemingly harmless parenting behaviors such as belittlement and sarcasm," said Dickson. "Parents must be reminded of their influence on adolescents' emotions and should take steps to ensure that adolescents do not feel ridiculed at home."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190709110230.htm

Larry Minikes 9/4/19 Larry Minikes 9/4/19

Want to boost creativity? Try playing Minecraft

July 8, 2019

Science Daily/Iowa State University

The next time you need to get the creative juices flowing, playing some types of video games may help.

Video games that foster creative freedom can increase creativity under certain conditions, according to new research from Iowa State University. The experimental study compared the effect of playing Minecraft, with or without instruction, to watching a TV show or playing a race car video game. Those given the freedom to play Minecraft without instruction were most creative.

"It's not just that Minecraft can help induce creativity. There seems to be something about choosing to do it that also matters," said Douglas Gentile, a professor of psychology.

If you are not familiar with the game, Gentile says Minecraft is like a virtual Lego world. The game, which has sold more than 100 million copies, allows players to explore unique worlds and create anything they can imagine. Study participants randomly assigned to play Minecraft were split into two groups. The one receiving instruction was told to play as creatively as possible.

After 40 minutes of play or watching TV, the 352 participants completed several creativity tasks. To measure creative production, they were asked to draw a creature from a world much different than Earth. More human-like creatures scored low for creativity and those less human-like scored high. Surprisingly, those instructed to be creative while playing Minecraft were the least creative.

Gentile says there's no clear explanation for this finding. In the paper published by Creativity Research Journal, he, Jorge Blanco-Herrera, lead author and former master's student in psychology; and Jeffrey Rokkum, former Ph.D. student in psychology, outlined possible reasons why the instructed Minecraft group scored lower. Blanco-Herrera says the instructions may have changed subjects' motivation for play.

"Being told to be creative may have actually limited their options while playing, resulting in a less creative experience," Blanco-Herrera said. "It's also possible they used all their 'creative juices' while playing and had nothing left when it came time to complete the test."

Games teach creativity similar to aggression

Video games can have both harmful and beneficial effects. Gentile's previous research has shown the amount, content and context of video games influence what players learn through repeated experiences. While much of Gentile's research has focused on aggression or prosocial behavior, he says the same appears to be true for creativity.

Most video games encourage players to practice some level of creativity. For example, players may create a character and story for role-playing games or be rewarded for creative strategies in competitive games. The researchers say even first-person shooter games can potentially inspire creativity as players think about strategy and look for advantages in combat.

"The research is starting to tell a more interesting, nuanced picture. Our results are similar to other gaming research in that you get better at what you practice, but how you practice might matter just as much," Gentile said.

The researchers say based on these findings, it is important to not disregard the potential video games have as engaging and adaptive educational opportunities.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190708140051.htm

Larry Minikes 8/23/19 Larry Minikes 8/23/19

Too much screen time for the kids? Grandparents may also be complicit

In the age of high-tech electronics many kids spend about half their visit with grandparents watching videos or playing with apps

July 8, 2019

Science Daily/Rutgers University

Grandparents have long been associated with letting their grandchildren do things their parents would never permit. Candy. Extended bedtime. Too much television. Carefree fun. They like to spoil their grandchildren.

A new study by Rutgers and other researchers finds that today's grandparents are still true to their traditional fun-loving image -- allowing their grandchildren, while under their supervision, to spend about half of their time on a mobile phone, tablet, computer or TV.

The study, published in the Journal of Children and Media, suggests that grandparents should restrict media use by setting simple rules for screen time when babysitting. This is particularly needed when children bring a device from home and expect to watch even more.

"Grandparents play a very significant role in raising their grandchildren. We need to educate them about the impact of media on children's lives and on proper use that will benefit the wellbeing of their grandchildren," said study co-author Dafna Lemish, a distinguished professor of journalism and media studies and associate dean for programs at Rutgers University-New Brunswick's School of Communication and Information.

The study reviewed the experiences of grandparents of children ages 2-7 who take care of their grandchildren at least once per week and found that during an average four-hour visit, the children spent two hours either watching videos or playing games on electronic devices.

Among the findings:

· Many grandparents feel less confident in managing children's use of interactive media, such as games, than in managing their use of non-interactive videos. This may be due to lack of experience with games or apps.

· Some children's parents give the grandparents instructions about how to handle media use. This, ironically, leads to more screen time viewing.

· Grandfathers in the study allowed more interactive screen time than did grandmothers, perhaps because they are more comfortable with the technology.

· On average, grandparents had more difficulty in managing the media use of boys and older children than of girls and younger children. Boys on average spent 17 minutes more than girls with media related activities.

· Grandparents allow more screen time when they care for children in their own homes versus the children's homes. They also allow more screen time when the child brings a tablet or other device from home, as 22 percent of grandchildren do.

· The lowest amount of time dedicated to media use per visit with grandparents was found among children aged 2 to 3, at an average of 98 minutes per visit. Children aged 4 to 5 spent an average of 106 minutes with electronic devices, and children aged 6 to 7 had 143 minutes of screen time, on average per visit.

The study offers the following recommendations:

Grandparents who set strict rules (such as not more than an hour; not before bedtime; not during meals) succeed in reducing their grandchildren's screen time.

Parents should supply toys, games and books to help grandparents keep children busy.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190708154051.htm

Larry Minikes 8/23/19 Larry Minikes 8/23/19

Problematic smartphone use linked to poorer grades, alcohol misuse, more sexual partners

Study finds 1 in 5 university students affected by problematic smartphone use

July 8, 2019

Science Daily/University of Cambridge

A survey of more than 3,400 university students in the USA has found that one in five respondents reported problematic smartphone use. Female students were more likely be affected and problematic smartphone use was associated with lower grade averages, mental health problems and higher numbers of sexual partners.

Smartphones offer the potential of instant, round-the-clock access for making phone calls, playing games, gambling, chatting with friends, using messenger systems, accessing web services (e.g. websites, social networks and pornography), and searching for information. The number of users is rapidly increasing, with some estimates suggesting that there are now more than 2.7 billion users worldwide.

While most people using smartphones find them a helpful and positive part of life, a minority of users develop excessive smartphone use, meaning that smartphone use has significant negative effects on how people function in life. Previous research has linked excessive smartphone use to mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and problems with self-esteem.

A collaborative team of researchers from the University of Chicago, University of Cambridge, and the University of Minnesota, developed the Health and Addictive Behaviours Survey to assess mental health and well-being in a large sample of university students. They used the survey to investigate the impact of smartphone use on university students. Just over a third (3,425) of students invited to take the test responded. The results are published today in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions.

The self-report survey consisted of 156 questions. Based on their responses, the students were given a score ranging from 10 to 60, with a score of 32 and above being defined as problematic smartphone use. This definition was based on a threshold recommended previously in clinical validation studies using the scale. Typical characteristics of problematic use include: excessive use; trouble concentrating in class or at work due to smartphone use; feeling fretful or impatient without their smartphone; missing work due to smartphone use; and experiencing physical consequences of excessive use, such as light-headedness or blurred vision.

The researchers found that one in five (20%) of respondents reported problematic smartphone use.

Problematic smartphone use was greater among female rather than male students -- 64% of problem users were female. Importantly, the researchers found a link between problematic smartphone use and lower grade point averages (academic achievement).

"Although the effect of problematic smartphone use on grade point averages was relatively small, it's worth noting that even a small negative impact could have a profound effect on an individual's academic achievement and then on their employment opportunities in later life," said Professor Jon Grant from the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Chicago.

While students reporting problematic smartphone use tended be less sexually active than their peers (70.9% compared to 74%), the proportion of students reporting two or more sexual partners in the past 12 months was significantly higher among problem users: 37.4% of sexually-active problematic smartphone users compared with 27.2% sexually-active students who reported no problem use. The proportion with six or more sexual partners was more than double among sexually-active problematic smartphone users (6.8% compared to 3.0%).

"Smartphones can help connect people and help people feel less isolated, and our findings suggest that they may act as an avenue for sexual contact, whether through sustained partnerships or more casual sex," added Dr Sam Chamberlain, Wellcome Trust Clinical Fellow and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge and the Cambridge & Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust.

The researchers found that alcohol misuse was significantly higher in those with problematic smartphone use compared to the control group. To assess this, the team used a scale known as the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test: a score of eight or above indicates harmful alcohol use. 33.3% of problematic smartphone users scored eight or above compared to 22.5% of other smartphone users. The researchers found no significant link with any other form of substance abuse or addiction.

In terms of other mental health problems, the researchers found that problematic smartphone use was significantly associated with lower self-esteem, ADHD, depression, anxiety, and PTSD, mirroring similar findings elsewhere.

"It's easy to think of problematic smartphone use as an addiction, but if it was that simple, we would expect it to be associated with a wide range of substance misuse problems, especially in such a large sample, but this does not seem to be the case," added Dr Sam Chamberlain.

"One possible explanation for these results is that people develop excessive smartphone use because of other mental health difficulties. For example, people who are socially isolated, those who experience depression or anxiety, or those who have attention problems (as in ADHD) may be more prone to excessive smartphone use, as well as to using alcohol. Smartphone use likely develops earlier in life -- on average -- than alcohol use problems and so it is unlikely that alcohol use itself leads to smartphone use."

While the sample size for this study was relative large, suggesting that the findings should be fairly robust, the researchers point out that as a cross-sectional study (one that takes a 'snapshot' at one particular time, rather than following people over a longer period), and so direction of causality cannot be established. In other words, the study cannot say that problematic smartphone use leads to mental health issues or vice versa.

The researchers point out the effect sizes were also generally small, and that more research is needed into positive and negative effects of smartphone use and mental health, including how this changes over time.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190708112421.htm

Larry Minikes 8/23/19 Larry Minikes 8/23/19

Good home learning in early years boosts your secondary school achievements

July 7, 2019

Science Daily/Taylor & Francis Group

The positive effects of a rich home learning environment during a child's early years continue into adolescence and help improve test scores later in life, according to a new study published in School Effectiveness and School Improvement.

This research shows pre-schoolers whose parents regularly read and talked about books with them scored better on math tests at age 12. The study, lead by Dr Simone Lehrl of the University of Bamberg, is one of the first to provide detail on the importance of early years home learning on children's development up to early adolescence.

Researchers studied 229 German children from age three until secondary school and participants' literacy and numeracy skills were tested annually in their three years of preschool (ages 3-5), and again when they were 12 or 13 years old.

They found that children gained from home stimulation in their preschool years in literacy, language and arithmetic skills which, in turn, led to higher outcomes in reading and mathematical skills in secondary school, regardless of the home learning environment then.

Dr Lehrl said: "Our results underline the great importance of exposing children to books for development not just in literacy but numeracy too: early language skills not only improve a child's reading but also boost mathematical ability.

"Encouraging caregivers to engage with their children in direct literacy activities, shared book reading and advanced verbal interactions during reading, and to include language and mathematical content during these activities, should promote children's reading and mathematical abilities in secondary school. Such experiences lay a strong foundation for later school success."

Formal literacy activities not only boosted language skills and reading comprehension but also improved numerical skills. Book exposure and the quality of verbal interactions regarding mathematical content during shared book reading (for example, talking about numbers and counting) when children were of preschool age were also associated with better math outcomes at age 12. The effect also worked the other way with the quality of parent-child interaction regarding mathematics also improving children's language skills.

Aspects of the children's home learning environment -- formal literacy and numeracy activities, book exposure (parents owning books and reading to the child), and the quality of verbal parent-child interactions regarding language and mathematics -- were also assessed and researchers ensured they accounted for background variables, such as gender, maternal education and socio-economic status, which affect the home learning environment in the results.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190707215816.htm

Larry Minikes 8/23/19 Larry Minikes 8/23/19

Sister, neighbor, friend: Thinking about multiple roles boosts kids' performance

Reminding children of their many identities can lead to better problem-solving and more flexible thinking

July 2, 2019

Science Daily/Duke University

A typical child plays many roles, such as friend, neighbor, son or daughter. Simply reminding children of that fact can lead to better problem-solving and more flexible thinking, finds new research. Better problem-solving was just one positive finding of the study. After considering their own various identities, children also showed more flexible thinking about race and other social groupings -- a behavior that could be valuable in an increasingly diverse society.

"This is some of the first research on reminding kids about their multi-faceted selves," said lead author Sarah Gaither, an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke. "Such reminders boost their problem-solving skills and how flexibly they see their social worlds -- all from a simple mindset switch."

Better problem-solving was just one positive finding of the study, Gaither said. After considering their own various identities, children also showed more flexible thinking about race and other social groupings -- a behavior that could be valuable in an increasingly diverse society.

The research appears July 2 in the journal Developmental Science.

In a series of experiments, Gaither and her colleagues looked at 196 children, ages 6 and 7. All were native English speakers.

In one experiment, the first group of children was reminded they have various identities, such as son, daughter, reader or helper. A second group of children was reminded of their multiple physical attributes (such as a mouth, arms and legs).

In another experiment, one group of children was again reminded they have various identities. A second set of children received similar prompts -- but about other children's many roles, not their own.

All the children then tackled a series of tasks. Children who were reminded of their various identities demonstrated stronger problem-solving and creative thinking skills. For instance, when shown pictures of a bear gazing at a honey-filled beehive high up in a tree, these children had more creative ideas for how the bear might get the honey, such as flipping over a bowl so that it becomes a stool. In other words, they saw a new use for the bowl.

Children who were reminded of their multiple roles also showed more flexible thinking about social groupings. When asked to categorize different photos of faces, they suggested many ways to do so. For instance, they identified smiling faces vs. unsmiling ones, and old vs. young faces. The other children, meanwhile, primarily grouped people's faces by race and gender.

Because the results suggest simple ways to promote flexible, inclusive thinking for the young, they could be especially valuable for teachers, Gaither said.

"We have this tendency in our society to only think about ourselves in connection with one important group at a time," Gaither said. "When we remind kids that they have various identities, they think beyond our society's default categories, and remember that there are many other groups in addition to race and gender.

"It opens their horizons to be a little more inclusive."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190702184604.htm

Larry Minikes 8/22/19 Larry Minikes 8/22/19

Sister, neighbor, friend: Thinking about multiple roles boosts kids' performance

Reminding children of their many identities can lead to better problem-solving and more flexible thinking

July 2, 2019

Science Daily/Duke University

The research appears July 2 in the journal Developmental Science.

In a series of experiments, Gaither and her colleagues looked at 196 children, ages 6 and 7. All were native English speakers.

Because the results suggest simple ways to promote flexible, inclusive thinking for the young, they could be especially valuable for teachers, Gaither said.

"It opens their horizons to be a little more inclusive."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190702184604.htm

Larry Minikes 8/22/19 Larry Minikes 8/22/19

Pesticide exposure linked to teen depression

July 2, 2019

Science Daily/University of California - San Diego

Adolescents exposed to elevated levels of pesticides are at an increased risk of depression, according to a new study led by Jose R. Suarez-Lopez, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health at University of California San Diego School of Medicine. The study was published online (ahead of print) in June 2019 in the journal International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health.

Suarez-Lopez and colleagues have been tracking the development of children living near agriculture in the Ecuadorian Andes since 2008. In this latest study, they examined 529 adolescents between the ages of 11 and 17. Ecuador is the world's third-largest exporter of roses, with much of the flower production located near the homes of participants. Like many other agricultural crops, flowers are routinely sprayed with organophosphate insecticides, which are known to affect the human cholinergic system, a key system in the function of the brain and nervous system.

To test exposure levels of children, the research team measured levels of the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE) in the blood. Pesticides such as organophosphates and carbamates exert their toxicity by inhibiting AChE activity. Past studies have shown that cholinesterase inhibition is linked to behaviors of anxiety and depression in mice, and a few existing studies in humans have also suggested such a link; however, pesticide exposure assessment in past studies had been only established by self-report of exposure and not using biological measures.

The results confirmed their hypothesis: teens who had lower AChE activity, suggesting greater exposure to cholinesterase inhibitors, showed more symptoms of depression assessed using a standardized depression assessment tool. Notably, the association was stronger for girls (who comprised half of all participants) and for teens younger than 14 years.

"Agricultural workers and people in these communities have long offered anecdotal reports of a rise in adolescent depression and suicidal tendencies," said Suarez-Lopez. "This is the first study to provide empirical data establishing that link using a biological marker of exposure, and it points to a need for further study."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190702152806.htm

Larry Minikes 8/21/19 Larry Minikes 8/21/19

Supervised fun, exercise both provide psychosocial benefit to children with obesity

July 2, 2019

Science Daily/Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University

A program with clear rules, routines and activities, attentive adults and a chance to interact with peers appears to work as well at improving the quality of life, mood and self-worth of a child who is overweight or obese as a regular exercise program, researchers report.

While regular exercise is clearly beneficial to children -- and adults -- the psychosocial health of children may benefit as much from other kinds of adult-led after school programs, Medical College of Georgia researchers report in the journal Translational Behavioral Medicine.

"For me the take-home message is yes, exercise has many wonderful benefits but some of that is because you are in a program run by caring adults," says Dr. Catherine Davis, clinical health psychologist at MCG's Georgia Prevention Institute and the study's corresponding author.

They looked at 175 predominantly black children ages 8-11 who had overweight or obesity and were previously inactive. Children participated in either a fun-driven aerobic exercise program or a sedentary after-school program where they played board games and did artistic activities.

The investigators hypothesized that they would find that the exercise intervention would be more effective at improving quality of life, mood and self-worth than the sedentary program.

They found instead that, while the exercise program had the additional benefits of reducing body fat, improving fitness, and even improved brain health, there was no mood advantage from the exercise program. Fatness and fitness did not change as much in the sedentary group.

In fact, in the case of the boys, those in the sedentary group reported depressive symptoms actually decreased more over time than their peers in the exercise group.

About 10 percent of children in both groups had symptoms indicating depression at the start of the study. Depressive symptoms in children include things like a sad mood, interpersonal problems and inability to feel pleasure.

Among participating girls, depressive symptoms yielded similar improvements whether in the exercise or sedentary group, says Celestine F. Williams, senior research associate at the Georgia Prevention Institute and first author on the study.

Those sex differences might be attributable to males in the sedentary group not being under the pressure they may feel to participate and succeed in physical activities, and finding instead an opportunity to pursue more artistic and social endeavors, which children of this age tend to prefer, the investigators write.

Countless studies, including some led by Davis, have shown that regular physical activity in children who are overweight or obese and inactive can yield a variety of benefits, including reducing fatness, improving fitness and insulin sensitivity -- which reduces the risk of diabetes and other maladies -- as well as perhaps less obvious benefits, like improved cognition and improved brain health, and reduced anger and depression.

This time Davis and her colleagues wanted to more directly compare the impact of an exercise program versus a similar sedentary program on the psychosocial wellbeing of these children. While there are often control groups in this type of study, most compare the exercise program to either no program, or a less interactive and fun program. Davis and Williams agree that likely was a big part of the differences they found this time.

All the children were evaluated for depressive symptoms, anger expression, self-worth and quality of life right before starting and after finishing either arm of the study. Depressive symptoms and quality of life were measured again about a year later.

In the exercise program, the instructor led fun aerobic activity for 40 minutes daily based on the interests and abilities of the children. Rather than time on a treadmill, for example, there were more entertaining strategies to get and keep the heart rate up like a version of the age-old game tag. Children wore heart rate monitors and were rewarded for an average heart rate above 150 beats per minute during the exercise -- the average resting heart rate for an 8-year-old is 70 to 110 beats per minute -- and they got more points for a higher average.

In the other group, children participated in instructor-led activities like board games, puzzles, arts and music, and were rewarded for participation and good behavior. There were arts and crafts, challenging games like the strategy board game Connect 4, guitar music and singing popular songs, and the children were rewarded with points for being nice and cleaning up behind themselves. The children were free to talk with each other as long as it was not disruptive, which was probably a highlight for the boys, Williams says.

Relationships the children built with each other over the course of both programs likely were beneficial in elevating their mood and quality of life, Williams says. The sedentary program may have given children more time to talk with each other and develop friendships with little competitive pressure.

Other investigators have shown that children in the 8-11 age range may actually prefer just talking or socializing with their friends as a fun activity, rather than some form of exercise, while younger children may think it's more fun to run around, Williams says.

The fact that both programs provided psychosocial benefit to the children led the investigators to conclude that some benefits of exercise found in previous studies, including Davis', resulted from the regular opportunity to be with attentive adults who provide behavioral structure. It also resulted from the children enjoying interacting with each other, sharing snacks and other activities, while spending less time watching television.

Rates of obesity among children and the adolescents in this country have more than tripled since the 1970s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and currently about 1 in 5 school-age children and young people has obesity. Young blacks are disproportionately affected in this country.

There is plenty of evidence that obesity and overweight can impact overall quality of life and that children with these conditions can have increased problems with anxiety, bullying, fatigue, anger and general behavior problems, and that generally higher BMI, or body mass index, a ratio of weight to height, is associated with a lower self-worth in children.

"Exercise is very well demonstrated to improve mood. However, I think you have to consider exercise in the context that it occurs, so the social context counts too," says Davis.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190702112657.htm

Larry Minikes 8/21/19 Larry Minikes 8/21/19

Some children are more likely to suffer depression long after being bullied

July 1, 2019

Science Daily/University of Bristol

Some young adults who were bullied as a child could have a greater risk of ongoing depression due to a mix of genetic and environmental factors according to a new study from the University of Bristol.

Researchers wanted to find out what factors influenced depression in young adults between the ages of 10 and 24 and why some people responded differently to risk factors such as bullying, maternal postnatal depression, early childhood anxiety and domestic violence.

Using detailed mood and feelings questionnaires and genetic information from 3,325 teenagers who are part of Bristol's Children of the 90s study, alongside evidence of these risk factors at nine points in time they found that childhood bullying was strongly associated with trajectories of depression that rise at an early age. Children who continued to show high depression into adulthood were also more likely to have genetic liability for depression and a mother with postnatal depression. However, Children who were bullied but did not have any genetic liability for depression showed much lower depressive symptoms as they become young adults.

University of Bristol PhD student Alex Kwong commented: "Although we know that depression can strike first during the teenage years we didn't know how risk factors influenced change over time. Thanks to the Children of the 90s study, we were able to examine at multiple time points the relationships between the strongest risk factors such as bullying and maternal depression, as well as factors such as genetic liability.

"It's important that we know if some children are more at risk of depression long after any childhood bullying has occurred. Our study found that young adults who were bullied as children were eight times more likely to experience depression that was limited to childhood. However, some children who were bullied showed greater patterns of depression that continued into adulthood and this group of children also showed genetic liability and family risk.

"However, just because an individual has genetic liability to depression does not mean they are destined to go on and have depression. There are a number of complex pathways that we still don't fully understand and need to investigate further.

"The next steps should continue to look at both genetic and environmental risk factors to help untangle this complex relationship that would eventually help influence prevention and coping strategies for our health and education services."

Lecturer in Psychiatric Epidemiology at the University of Bristol Dr Rebecca Pearson added: "The results can help us to identify which groups of children are most likely to suffer ongoing symptoms of depression into adulthood and which children will recover across adolescence. For example, the results suggest that children with multiple risk factors (including family history and bullying) should be targeted for early intervention but that when risk factors such as bullying occur insolation, symptoms of depression may be less likely to persist"

Karen Black, Chief Executive Officer for Bristol's Off the Record added: "At Off The Record we see a diverse mix of young people presenting with a range of needs, often depression and anxiety. Understanding some of the factors that influence this will further help us to shape services and our offer for young people. I would also hope that studies such as these will help change policy direction and spending so that we start to get upstream of the issues that we know affect mental health including education and family, prevention rather than cure ideally."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190701144454.htm

Larry Minikes 8/21/19 Larry Minikes 8/21/19

Sleep readies synapses for learning

Findings offer insight into changes that occur in the brain during sleep

July 1, 2019

Science Daily/Society for Neuroscience

Synapses in the hippocampus are larger and stronger after sleep deprivation, according to new research in mice published in JNeurosci. Overall, this study supports the idea that sleep may universally weaken synapses that are strengthened from learning, allowing for new learning to occur after waking.

Sleep is thought to recalibrate synaptic strength after a day of learning, allowing for new learning to take place the next day. Chiara Cirelli and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison examined how synapses in the hippocampus, a structure involved in learning, changed following sleep and sleep deprivation in mice.

Consistent with previous studies in the cortex, the researchers observed that synapses were larger, and therefore stronger, after the mice were awake for six to seven hours compared to after they were asleep for the same amount of time. Additionally, the researchers found that the synapses were strongest when the mice were forced to stay awake and interact with new stimuli, compared to mice that stayed awake on their own. This is consistent with the hippocampus' role in learning, and suggests that synaptic changes take place when learning occurs, not merely from being awake.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190701144310.htm

Larry Minikes 8/21/19 Larry Minikes 8/21/19

Teens who can describe negative emotions can stave off depression

June 28, 2019

Science Daily/University of Rochester

Teenagers who can describe their negative emotions in precise and nuanced ways are better protected against depression than their peers who can't. That's the conclusion of a new study about negative emotion differentiation, or NED -- the ability to make fine-grained distinctions between negative emotions and apply precise labels -- published in the journal Emotion.

"Adolescents who use more granular terms such as 'I feel annoyed,' or 'I feel frustrated,' or 'I feel ashamed' -- instead of simply saying 'I feel bad' -- are better protected against developing increased depressive symptoms after experiencing a stressful life event," explains lead author Lisa Starr, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Rochester.

Those who score low on negative emotion differentiation tend to describe their feelings in more general terms such as "bad" or "upset." As a result, they are less able to benefit from useful lessons encoded in their negative emotions, including the ability to develop coping strategies that could help them regulate how they feel.

"Emotions convey a lot of information. They communicate information about the person's motivational state, level of arousal, emotional valence, and appraisals of the threatening experience," says Starr. A person has to integrate all that information to figure out -- "am I feeling irritated," or "am I feeling angry, embarrassed, or some other emotion?"

Once you know that information you can use it to help determine the best course of action, explains Starr: "It's going to help me predict how my emotional experience will unfold, and how I can best regulate these emotions to make myself feel better."

The team found that a low NED strengthens the link between stressful life events and depression, leading to reduced psychological well-being.

By focusing exclusively on adolescence, which marks a time of heightened risk for depression, the study zeroed in on a gap in the research to date. Prior research suggests that during adolescence a person's NED plunges to its lowest point, compared to that of younger children or adults. It's exactly during this developmentally crucial time that depression rates climb steadily.

Previous research had shown that depression and low NED were related to each other, but the research designs of previous studies did not test whether a low NED temporally preceded depression. To the researchers, this phenomenon became the proverbial chicken-and-egg question: did those youth who showed signs of significant depressive symptoms have a naturally low NED, or was their NED low as a direct result of their feeling depressed?

The team, made up of Starr, Rachel Hershenberg, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Emory University, and Rochester graduate students Zoey Shaw, Irina Li, and Angela Santee, recruited 233 mid-adolescents in the greater Rochester area with an average age of nearly 16 (54 percent of them female) and conducted diagnostic interviews to evaluate the participants for depression.

Next, the teenagers reported their emotions four times daily over the period of seven days. One and a half years later, the team conducted follow-up interviews with the original participants (of whom 193 returned) to study longitudinal outcomes.

The researchers found that youth who are poor at differentiating their negative emotions are more susceptible to depressive symptoms following stressful life events. Conversely, those who display high NED are better at managing the emotional and behavioral aftermath of being exposed to stress, thereby reducing the likelihood of having negative emotions escalate into a clinically significant depression over time.

Depression ranks among the most challenging public health problems worldwide. As the most prevalent mental disorder, it not only causes recurring and difficult conditions for sufferers, but also costs the U.S. economy tens of billions of dollars each year and has been identified by the World Health Organization as the number one cause of global burden among industrialized nations. Particularly depression in adolescent girls is an important area to study, note the researchers, as this age brings a surge in depression rates, with a marked gender disparity that continues well into adulthood.

Adolescent depression disrupts social and emotional development, which can lead to a host of negative outcomes, including interpersonal problems, reduced productivity, poor physical health, and substance abuse. Moreover, people who get depressed during adolescence are more likely to become repeatedly depressed throughout their life span, says Starr. That's why mapping the emotional dynamics associated with depression is key to finding effective treatments.

"Basically you need to know the way you feel, in order to change the way you feel," says Starr. "I believe that NED could be modifiable, and I think it's something that could be directly addressed with treatment protocols that target NED."

The team's findings contribute to a growing body of research that tries to make inroads in the fight against rising rates of adolescent depression, suicidal thoughts, and suicide. According to the most recent CDC data, about 17 percent of high school students nationwide say they have thought of suicide, more than 13 percent said they actually made a suicide plan, and 7.4 percent attempted suicide in the past year.

"Our data suggests that if you are able to increase people's NED then you should be able to buffer them against stressful experiences and the depressogenic effect of stress," says Starr.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190628120447.htm

Larry Minikes 8/21/19 Larry Minikes 8/21/19

Mood neurons mature during adolescence

Late-maturing amygdala neurons may play role in emotional development, mood disorders

June 24, 2019

Science Daily/University of California - San Francisco

Researchers have discovered a mysterious group of neurons in the amygdala -- a key center for emotional processing in the brain -- that stay in an immature, prenatal developmental state throughout childhood. Most of these cells mature rapidly during adolescence, suggesting a key role in the brain's emotional development, but some stay immature throughout life, suggesting new ideas about how the brain keeps its emotional responses flexible throughout life.

"Most brain cells have matured far beyond this stage by the time you are born," said study lead author Shawn Sorrells, PhD, a former UCSF researcher who is now assistant professor of neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh. "It's fascinating that these are some of the very last cells to mature in the human brain, and most do so during puberty, precisely when huge developments in emotional intelligence are going on."

The amygdala is an almond-shaped brain structure located deep in the brain's temporal lobes (you actually have two, one on each side of the brain) that plays a key role in learning appropriate emotional responses to our environment. During childhood and adolescence -- long after most of the rest of the human brain is finished growing -- the amygdala continues to expand by as many as two million neurons, a late growth spurt that researchers believe is likely to play a key role in human emotional development, and which may go awry in neurodevelopmental disorders. For example, this expansion is absent in children with autism, and mood disorders that frequently emerge in adolescence, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), have also been linked to problems with amygdala development.

Recent studies had detected a unique group of immature neurons in a region of the amygdala called the paralaminar nuclei (PL), which could help explain the amygdala's rapid growth, but researchers had little idea where these cells came from or what role they play in mature brain circuits -- even whether they are excitatory or inhibitory, the two main functional classes of neurons.

In the new study, published June 21, 2019, in Nature Communications, researchers from the lab of Arturo Alvarez-Buylla, PhD, the Heather and Melanie Muss Endowed Chair and Professor of Neurological Surgery and a member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF, set out to understand the identity of these cells and their role in the amygdala's rapid growth during childhood.

The researchers examined postmortem human amygdala tissue from 49 human brains -- ranging in age from 20 gestational weeks to 78 years of age. Using both anatomical and molecular techniques to classify individual neurons' maturity and function within neural circults, they found that the percentage of immature cells in the PL region of the amygdala remains high throughout childhood, but declines rapidly during adolescence: from birth to age 13, the number of immature cells declines from approximately 90 percent to just under 70 percent, but by the end of adolescence, only about 20 percent of PL cells remain immature.

Based on quantification of neurons in different stages of development coupled with analysis of gene expression patterns in individual neurons extracted from PL, the researchers showed that as the immature cells disappear, they are replaced by mature excitatory neurons -- suggesting that the cells have taken their place in the amygdala's maturing emotion processing circuitry. Since this is the first time these neurons have been clearly studied, scientists don't know exactly what function the neurons serve, but the timing of their maturation suggests they may play a role in the rapid emotional development that occurs during human adolescence.

"Anyone who's met a teenager knows that they are going through a rapid and sometimes tumultuous process of emotional learning about how to respond to stress, how to form positive social bonds, and so on," Sorrells said. "At the same time, adolescence is when many psychiatric disorders known to involve the amygdala first manifest, suggesting that perhaps something has gone wrong with the normal process of emotional and cognitive development -- though whether these cells are involved is a matter for future study."

Notably, the researchers also found that some immature neurons appear to remain in the amygdala throughout life, and were even found in one 77-year-old brain. These results were in stark contrast to the hippocampus -- a nearby structure in which the authors recently found that newborn and immature neurons completely decline to undetectable levels by adolescence.

"This is consistent with what we have seen before: that immature neurons are vanishingly rare in the adult hippocampus, but they do appear to persist in the amygdala," Alvarez-Buylla said. "As far as we can tell, these cells aren't being born throughout life, but seem to be maintained in an immature state from birth, though we can't say this for sure given the techniques we've used here."

In other animals, such as mice, new neurons continue to be born throughout life in the memory-forming hippocampus -- and possibly at low rates in the amygdala -- which researchers believe allows the brain to continuously rewire neural circuits to adapt to new experiences and environments. Following on the authors' 2018 study showing that the birth of new neurons declines in the human brain during childhood and is very rare or absent in adults, the new study suggests that the human brain may maintain reserves of immature neurons throughout life, using these "Peter Pan" cells in a similar manner to the neurogenesis seen in other species -- as new cells to be called on as needed to keep the brain's emotional responses flexible and adaptable into old age.

"You could imagine these immature cells let the brain continue to sculpt the structure of neural circuits and their growth once you are out in the world experiencing what it's like," Sorrells said. "Of course, that's just speculation at this point -- one of the fascinating questions these findings open up for future study."

Neurogenesis

Whether new neurons are born in the adult primate or human brain remains controversial. In 2018, Alvarez-Buylla, Sorrells and colleagues published results of the most rigorous search yet for new neurons in the human hippocampus, and they found that the birth of new neurons declined rapidly in childhood and was undetectable in adults.

Subsequently, other groups published data that appears to show newborn neurons in the adult human hippocampus, but Alvarez-Buylla and colleagues believe these studies rely too strongly on a small number of molecular markers for newborn neurons. They have shown that these markers can also be found in fully mature neurons and in non-neuronal cells called glia -- which are known to continue dividing throughout life.

"Identifying new neurons is technically very challenging," Alvarez-Buylla said. "It's easy to forget that the molecular markers we use to identify particular molecules are not produced for our benefit -- cells are using these molecules for their own biological needs, which are always going to be messy from the perspective of someone looking for simple classification. This is why we have endeavored to examine as many lines of evidence as possible -- not just molecular markers but also cells' shape and appearance -- to make sure we are confident in what types of cells we are actually looking at in these analyses."

The new study in the amygdala uses comprehensive single-cell gene expression techniques to sensitively detect immature neurons based on multiple lines of molecular evidence, and reinforces the group's earlier findings in the hippocampus -- showing that the precursors that divide to give birth to new neurons disappear within the first two years of life in the human amygdala, and that most immature neurons disappear during adolescence.

"Single-cell sequencing not only clearly identifies these long-lived immature neurons, but also shows that they express many developmental genes involved in axon development, synaptogenesis, dendrite morphogenesis, and even neuronal migration," Sorrells said. "These cells could be erroneously assumed to be newborn neurons, but based on our developmental perspective, and the fact that we see few dividing cells present nearby, it looks as though they are already present at birth and decline throughout life."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190624111530.htm

Larry Minikes 8/21/19 Larry Minikes 8/21/19

Music students do better in school than non-musical peers

June 24, 2019

Science Daily/University of British Columbia

High school students who take music courses score significantly better on math, science and English exams than their non-musical peers, according to a new study published in the Journal of Educational Psychology.

School administrators needing to trim budgets often look first to music courses, because the general belief is that students who devote time to music rather than math, science and English, will underperform in those disciplines.

"Our research proved this belief wrong and found the more the students engage with music, the better they do in those subjects," said UBC education professor and the study's principal investigator, Peter Gouzouasis. "The students who learned to play a musical instrument in elementary and continued playing in high school not only score significantly higher, but were about one academic year ahead of their non-music peers with regard to their English, mathematics and science skills, as measured by their exam grades, regardless of their socioeconomic background, ethnicity, prior learning in mathematics and English, and gender."

Gouzouasis and his team examined data from all students in public schools in British Columbia who finished Grade 12 between 2012¬ and 2015. The data sample, made up of more than 112,000 students, included those who completed at least one standardized exam for math, science and English, and for whom the researchers had appropriate demographic information -- including gender, ethnicity, neighbourhood socioeconomic status, and prior learning in numeracy and literacy skills. Students who studied at least one instrumental music course in the regular curriculum counted as students taking music. Qualifying music courses are courses that require previous instrumental music experience and include concert band, conservatory piano, orchestra, jazz band, concert choir and vocal jazz.

The researchers found the predictive relationships between music education and academic achievement were more pronounced for those who took instrumental music rather than vocal music. The findings suggest skills learned in instrumental music transfer very broadly to the students' learning in school.

"Learning to play a musical instrument and playing in an ensemble is very demanding," said the study's co-investigator Martin Guhn, an assistant professor in UBC's school of population and public health. "A student has to learn to read music notation, develop eye-hand-mind coordination, develop keen listening skills, develop team skills for playing in an ensemble and develop discipline to practice. All those learning experiences, and more, play a role in enhancing the learner's cognitive capacities, executive functions, motivation to learn in school, and self-efficacy."

The researchers hope that their findings are brought to the attention of students, parents, teachers and administrative decision-makers in education, as many school districts over the years have emphasized numeracy and literacy at the cost of other areas of learning, particularly music.

"Often, resources for music education -- including the hiring of trained, specialized music educators, and band and stringed instruments -- are cut or not available in elementary and secondary schools so that they could focus on math, science and English," said Gouzouasis. "The irony is that music education -- multiple years of high-quality instrumental learning and playing in a band or orchestra or singing in a choir at an advanced level -- can be the very thing that improves all-around academic achievement and an ideal way to have students learn more holistically in schools."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190624111504.htm

Larry Minikes 8/21/19 Larry Minikes 8/21/19

Skinny self-image, heavy workouts in adolescence are warning signs

22 percent of young men, 5 percent of young women engage in 'disordered eating' to bulk up

June 21, 2019

Science Daily/University of California - San Francisco

Adolescents who see themselves as puny and who exercise to gain weight may be at risk of so-called muscularity-oriented disordered eating behaviors, say researchers led by UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals.

The researchers found that 22 percent of males and 5 percent of females ages 18-to-24 exhibit these disordered eating behaviors, which are defined as including at least one of the following: eating more or differently to gain weight or bulk up, and use of dietary supplements or anabolic steroids to achieve the same goal.

Left unchecked, these behaviors may escalate to muscle dysmorphia, characterized by rigid diet, obsessive over-exercising and extreme preoccupation with physique, say the researchers in their study publishing in the International Journal of Eating Disorders on June 20, 2019.

"Some eating disorders can be challenging to diagnose," said first author Jason Nagata, MD, of the UCSF Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine. "Unlike anorexia nervosa, which may be easily identified by parents or pediatricians, disordered eating to increase bulk may masquerade as healthy habits and because of this, it tends to go unnoticed."

Heart Failure, Depression, Social Isolation in Worst Cases

At its most extreme, it can lead to heart failure due to insufficient calories and overexertion, as well as muscle dysmorphia, which is associated with social withdrawal and depression, Nagata said.

The 14,891 young adults in the study, who came from throughout the United States, had been followed for seven years. The researchers wanted to see if the early data, when the participants' average age was 15, revealed something about their perceptions and habits that may serve as warning signs.

They found that boys who exercised specifically to gain weight had 142 percent higher odds of this type of disordered eating; among girls, the odds were increased by 248 percent. Boys who perceived themselves as being underweight had 56 percent higher odds; in girls the odds were 271 percent higher. Smoking and alcohol use in boys, and smoking in girls, increased odds moderately.

Additionally, being of black race bolstered odds by 66 percent in boys and 181 percent in girls.

Non-heterosexual identity, which the participants had been asked about when they reached adulthood, was not found to be a risk factor, the researchers said.

In young adulthood, 6.9 percent of males reported supplement use to gain weight or build muscle and 2.8 percent said they used anabolic steroids. Use by young women was significantly lower at 0.7 percent and 0.4 percent respectively.

"Supplements are a black box, since they are not regulated," noted Nagata. "In extreme cases, supplements can cause liver and kidney damage. Anabolic steroids can cause both long-term and short-term health issues, including shrunken testicles, stunted growth and heart disease."

Nagata said that clues that indicate behaviors may approach muscle dysmorphia include a highly restrictive diet that omits fats and carbohydrates, compulsive weighing and checking of appearance, and extensive time dedicated to exercise that may cut into social activities.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190621220750.htm

Larry Minikes 8/21/19 Larry Minikes 8/21/19

Your brain activity can be used to measure how well you understand a concept

June 21, 2019

Science Daily/Dartmouth College

As students learn a new concept, measuring how well they grasp it has often depended on traditional paper and pencil tests. Dartmouth researchers have developed a machine learning algorithm, which can be used to measure how well a student understands a concept based on the student's brain activity patterns. The findings are published in Nature Communications.

The study is one of the first to look at how knowledge learned in school is represented in the brain. To test knowledge of concepts in STEM, Dartmouth researchers examined how novices and intermediate learners' knowledge and brain activity compared when testing mechanical engineering and physics concepts, and then developed a new method to assess their conceptual understanding.

"Learning about STEM topics is exciting but it can also be quite challenging. Yet, through the course of learning, students develop a rich understanding of many complex concepts. Presumably, this acquired knowledge must be reflected in new patterns of brain activity. However, we currently don't have a detailed understanding of how the brain supports this kind of complex and abstract knowledge, so that's what we set out to study," said senior author David Kraemer, an assistant professor of education at Dartmouth College.

Twenty-eight Dartmouth students participated in the study, broken into two equal groups: engineering students and novices. Engineering students had taken at least one mechanical engineering course and an advanced physics course, whereas novices had not taken any college-level engineering or physics classes. The study was comprised of three tests, which focused on how structures are built and assessed participants' understanding of Newton's third law -- for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Newton's third law is often used to describe the interactions of objects in motion, but it also applies to objects that are static, or nonmoving: all of the forces in a static structure need to be in equilibrium, a principle fundamental to understanding whether a structure will collapse under its own weight or whether it can support more weight.

At the start of the study, participants were provided with a brief overview of the different types of forces in mechanical engineering. In an fMRI scanner, they were presented with images of real-world structures (bridges, lampposts, buildings, and more) and were asked to think about how the forces in a given structure balanced out to keep the structure in equilibrium. Then, participants were prompted with a subsequent image of the same structure, where arrows representing forces were overlaid onto the structure. Participants were asked to identify if the Newtonian forces had been labeled correctly in this diagram. Engineering students (intermediate learners) answered 75 percent of the diagrams correctly and outperformed the novices, who answered 53.6 percent correctly.

Before the fMRI session, participants were also asked to complete two standardized, multiple-choice tests that measured other mechanical engineering and physics knowledge. For both tests, the engineering students had significantly higher scores than the novices with 50.2 percent versus 16.9 percent, and 79.3 percent versus 35.9 percent.

In cognitive neuroscience, studies on how information is stored in the brain often rely on averaging data across participants within a group, and then comparing their results to those from another group (such as experts versus novices). For this study, the Dartmouth researchers wanted to devise a data-driven method, which could generate an individual "neural score" based on the brain activity alone, without having to specify which group the participant was a part of. The team created a new method called an informational network analysis, a machine learning algorithm which "produced neural scores that significantly predicted individual differences in performance" testing knowledge of specific STEM concepts. To validate the neural score method, the researchers compared each student's neural score with his/her performance on the three tests. The results demonstrated that the higher the neural score, the higher the student scored on the concept knowledge tests.

"In the study, we found that when engineering students looked at images of real-world structures, the students would automatically apply their engineering knowledge, and would see the differences between structures such as whether it was a cantilever, truss or vertical load," explained Kraemer. "Based on the similarities in brain activity patterns, our machine learning algorithm method was able to distinguish the differences between these mechanical categories and generate a neural score that reflected this underlying knowledge. The idea here is that an engineer and novice will see something different when they look at a photograph of a structure, and we're picking up on that difference," he added.

The study found that while both engineering students and novices use the visual cortex similarly when applying concept knowledge about engineering, they use the rest of the brain very differently to process the same visual image. Consistent with prior research, the results demonstrated that the engineering students' conceptual knowledge was associated with patterns of activity in several brain regions, including the dorsal frontoparietal network that helps enable spatial cognition, and regions of ventral occipitotemporal cortex that are implicated in visual object recognition and category identification.

The informational network analysis could also have broader applications, as it could be used to evaluate the effectiveness of different teaching approaches. The research team is currently testing the comparison between hands-on labs versus virtual labs to determine if either approach leads to better learning and retention of knowledge over time.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190621140352.htm

Larry Minikes 8/21/19 Larry Minikes 8/21/19

Many parents struggle for years to adjust after learning a child's sexual orientation

Study calls for solutions that would help support parents and keep gay, bisexual and lesbian youth healthy and safe

June 18, 2019

Science Daily/George Washington University

Two years after their child "comes out" as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB), many parents still say that it is moderately or very hard for them to adjust to the news, according to a study published today. Those responses are the same, on average, as parents who have recently learned about their child's sexual orientation, a finding that suggests most parents struggle with such news for several years.

The results are important because previous studies suggest parents who have trouble adjusting are more likely to disapprove or adopt negative behaviors that can, in turn, put LGB youth at risk of serious health problems.

"Surprisingly, we found that parents who knew about a child's sexual orientation for two years struggled as much as parents who had recently learned the news," said David Huebner, PhD, MPH, associate professor of prevention and community health at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health (Milken Institute SPH). "Two years is a very long time in the life of a child who is faced with the stress of a disapproving or rejecting parent."

This study is one of the first and largest to survey parents themselves, Huebner said. In addition, the study includes data from parents rarely ever studied, Huebner said, noting that 26 percent of the parents surveyed had only learned their son or daughter identified as LGB in the past month. Huebner and his colleagues studied more than 1,200 parents of LGB youth ages 10 to 25. The researchers asked parents who visited a website with LGB resources to fill out a questionnaire.

Huebner and his colleagues asked parents "How hard is it for you, knowing that your son or daughter is gay, lesbian or bisexual?" Parents responded using a five-point scale of magnitude that ranged from not at all hard to extremely hard.

The researchers found:

· Parents who had learned about their child's sexual orientation two years ago reported struggling just as much as parents who had been told very recently;

· African American and Latino parents reported greater trouble adjusting compared to white parents;

· Parents of older youth said they had greater levels of difficulty compared to parents of younger children;

· Fathers and mothers reported similar levels of difficulty as did parents of boys and girls.

Huebner says that the difficulty most parents experience runs a developmental course with most gradually adjusting over a long period. Parents in this study who had known for five years or longer reported having the least amount of trouble with the fact that their child is LGB.

Parents who have trouble accepting the news may worry that their child might face a more difficult life, one that includes bullying or harassment. Others need time to adjust because they have long imagined a traditional heterosexual future for their child, Huebner said.

Previous research by this team suggests that if parents reject their child or react negatively -- even for a few years -- it takes a toll on the parent-child relationship. Negative parenting behaviors run the gamut from mild disapproval to outright rejection. Huebner's research and other studies suggest such behavior puts the child at high risk of depression, suicide, substance abuse and other health risks.

Still, Huebner says most parents, even those in shock when first learning the news, care deeply about their children and eventually do adjust.

"Our results suggest interventions to speed up the adjustment process would help not only the parents but also their children," Huebner said. "LGB youth with accepting families are more likely to thrive as they enter adulthood."

Huebner and his team have created a website, Lead With Love, that contains evidence-based resources for families, including a documentary film, to help support parents who have just learned about a child's sexual orientation.

At the same time, the researchers say much more needs to be done. For example, this study looked at parents and their reaction at a snapshot in time. Additional research must be done that follows parents and children to see how the relationship changes over the months and years. Such studies could help researchers develop better supports for families -- ones that would help keep the relationship between parents and children healthy and strong.

The study, "Effects of Family Demographics and the Passage of Time on Parents' Difficulty with Their Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual Youth's Sexual Orientation," was published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior. The National Institute of Mental Health funded the study.

To access free parent resources or to participate in similar research studies on this topic, visit the website Lead with Love here: https://leadwithlovefilm.com

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190618224055.htm

Larry Minikes 8/21/19 Larry Minikes 8/21/19

The brain consumes half of a child's energy -- and that could matter for weight gain

New paper proposes that variation in brain energy expenditure during childhood could be linked to obesity risk

June 17, 2019

Science Daily/Northwestern University

Weight gain occurs when an individual's energy intake exceeds their energy expenditure -- in other words, when calories in exceed calories out. What is less well understood is the fact that, on average, nearly half of the body's energy is used by the brain during early childhood.

In a new paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), "A hypothesis linking the energy demand of the brain to obesity risk," co-authors Christopher Kuzawa of Northwestern University and Clancy Blair of New York University School of Medicine, propose that variation in the energy needs of brain development across kids -- in terms of the timing, intensity and duration of energy use -- could influence patterns of energy expenditure and weight gain.

"We all know that how much energy our bodies burn is an important influence on weight gain," said Kuzawa, professor of anthropology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and a faculty fellow with the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern. "When kids are 5, their brains use almost half of their bodies' energy. And yet, we have no idea how much the brain's energy expenditure varies between kids. This is a huge hole in our understanding of energy expenditure."

"A major aim of our paper is to bring attention to this gap in understanding and to encourage researchers to measure the brain's energy use in future studies of child development, especially those focused on understanding weight gain and obesity risk."

According to the authors, another important unknown is whether programs designed to stimulate brain development through enrichment, such as preschool programs like Head Start, might influence the brain's pattern of energy use.

"We believe it plausible that increased energy expenditure by the brain could be an unanticipated benefit to early child development programs, which, of course, have many other demonstrated benefits," Kuzawa said. "That would be a great win-win."

This new hypothesis was inspired by Kuzawa and his colleagues' 2014 study showing that the brain consumes a lifetime peak of two-thirds of the body's resting energy expenditure, and almost half of total expenditure, when kids are five years old. This study also showed that ages when the brain's energy needs increase during early childhood are also ages of declining weight gain. As the energy needed for brain development declines in older children and adolescents, the rate of weight gain increases in parallel.

"This finding helped confirm a long-standing hypothesis in anthropology that human children evolved a much slower rate of childhood growth compared to other mammals and primates in part because their brains required more energy to develop," Kuzawa said.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190617164629.htm

Larry Minikes 8/21/19 Larry Minikes 8/21/19

Language-savvy parents improve their children's reading development

The researchers found that adults with higher reading-related knowledge are likelier to provide positive feedback, which helps the learning process

June 14, 2019

Science Daily/Concordia University

Parents with higher reading-related knowledge are not only more likely to have children with higher reading scores but are also more attentive when those children read out loud to them.

Young children learning to read and write English often need to identify patterns in words to be able to read and spell them. For example, knowing the "Magic E" syllable pattern can allow a child to understand why an E at the end of a word like "rate" significantly alters the word's sound from "rat."

Also, knowing that the words "one" and "two" are irregularly spelled helps prevent the child from trying to sound out the underlying sounds when seeing the word in print.

Parents who understand such language complexity -- what is known as reading-related knowledge -- are able to spot the difficulties and explain them. They also tend to pass on those skills when they listen to their children read, which in turn helps reading development.

These are among the findings of a new study, published in the Journal of Research in Reading, by two researchers from Concordia's Department of Education. They report that parents with higher reading-related knowledge are not only more likely to have children with higher reading scores but are also more attentive when those children read out loud to them.

The value of feedback

Seventy sets of six- and seven-year-old children and their parents participated in the study. The children were administered reading tests and were then provided with reading material at a level just above their performance level. This extra difficulty was intentional, as it provided opportunities for the parents to step in and lend a hand.

The parents were instructed to help their children as they normally would while their children read to them. The sessions were videotaped, transcribed and coded for evidence of parents' verbal and non-verbal feedback.

"We were interested in looking at two forms of feedback," says Aviva Segal, who co-wrote the paper as part of her now-completed PhD with her supervisor, Sandra Martin-Chang, associate professor of education. "The first was commenting on how the child was doing, the second was measuring how the parent responded when the child hesitated or made a mistake."

The results confirmed their beliefs that parents with higher reading-related knowledge offered more praise and less criticism to their children than parents with lower reading-related knowledge. They also found that parents with a better ear for language tried to explain the relations between graphemes (letters and letter patterns) and phonemes (the smallest sounds of spoken language) to their children more often.

"We found that reading-related knowledge in parents is associated with a good 'tag-team' of feedback," Segal says. "Parents with higher reading-related knowledge tend to give more praise, which sustains children throughout their learning, while at the same time they more often teach their children critical connections they need in order to read."

The learning was not all one-way, Segal notes. She says there were incidents when parents appeared to learn something about language while their children made mistakes reading to them.

"The parents sometimes seemed to have an 'aha!' moment, when they realized that their children were consistently stumbling on one particular obstacle. In essence, when they were able to make sense of some of the errors their children were making, parents noted their children's errors were the result of the language's trickiness and not the fault of the children," she reports.

"So, through these exchanges, parents might have been increasing their own reading-related knowledge based on what their children were displaying."

Lessons for teachers

This study has significant classroom implications as well.

"Reading-related knowledge is an important tool that many schools of education gloss over. This can lead teachers to provide negative feedback and criticism, which can cause self-doubt in children and discourage them from taking risks," says Martin-Chang.

"Teachers with high reading-related knowledge are often more positive and better equipped to offer precise feedback to their students. They have a sense of how hard it is for the child," she adds.

"Being able to target the right skills while at the same time praising the child's efforts will make the classroom a more positive setting. This can be achieved through increasing teachers' reading-related knowledge, which is a core focus of our training at Concordia."

Segal and Martin-Chang both believe parents should be encouraged to play with language and to pay attention to its characteristics.

"Have fun with it. Listen to song lyrics with your 7-year-old and figure out what rhymes," urges Martin-Chang.

"Even at the dinner table, play with words that start with the same sounds. When you do this, be sensitive and positive because these fun bonding interactions can become especially powerful."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190614111921.htm

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