Fight-or-flight response is altered in healthy young people who had COVID-19
August 9, 2021
Science Daily/The Physiological Society
New research published in The Journal of Physiology found that otherwise healthy young people diagnosed with COVID-19, regardless of their symptom severity, have problems with their nervous system when compared with healthy control subjects.
Specifically, the system which oversees the fight-or-flight response, the sympathetic nervous system, seems to be abnormal (overactive in some instances and underactive in others) in those recently diagnosed with COVID-19.
These results are especially important given the emerging evidence of symptoms like racing hearts being reported in conjunction with "long-COVID."
The impact of this alteration in fight-or-flight response, especially if prolonged, means that many processes within the body could be disrupted or affected. This research team has specifically been looking at the impact on the cardiovascular system -- including blood pressure and blood flow -- but the sympathetic nervous system is also important in exercise responses, the digestive system, the immune function, and more.
Understanding what happens in the body shortly following diagnosis of COVID-19 is an important first step towards understanding the potential long-term consequences of contracting the disease.
Importantly, if similar disruption of the flight-or-fight response, like that found here in young individuals, is present in older adults following COVID-19 infection, there may be substantial adverse implications for cardiovascular health.
The researchers studied lung function, exercise capacity, vascular function, and neural cardiovascular control (the control of heartbeat by the brain).
They used a technique called microneurography, wherein the researchers inserted a tiny needle with an electrode into a nerve behind the knee, which records the electrical impulses of that nerve and measures how many bursts of electrical activity are happening and how big the bursts are.
From this nerve activity, they can assess the function of the sympathetic nervous system through a series of tests. For all the tests, the subject was lying on their back on a bed. First, the researchers looked at the baseline resting activity of the nerves, heart rate, and blood pressure. Resting sympathetic nerve activity was higher in the COVID-19 participants than healthy people used as controls in the experiment.
Then, the subject did a "cold pressor test," where they stick their hand in an ice-water mixture (~0° C) for two minutes. In healthy individuals, this causes a profound increase in that sympathetic nerve (fight-or-flight) activity and blood pressure. The COVID-19 subjects rated their pain substantially lower than healthy subjects typically do.
Finally, the participant was moved to an upright position (the bed they're lying on can tilt up and down) to see how well their body can respond to a change in position. The COVID-19 subjects had a pretty large increase in heart rate during this test; they also had higher sympathetic nerve activity throughout the tilt test compared with other healthy young adults.
As with all research on humans, there are limitations to this study. However, the biggest limitation in the present study is its cross-sectional nature -- in other words, we do not know what the COVID-19 subjects' nervous system activity "looked like" before they were diagnosed with COVID-19.
These findings are consistent with the increasing reports of long-COVID symptoms pertaining to problems with the fight-or-flight response.
Abigail Stickford, senior author on this study said, "Through our collaborative project, we have been following this cohort of COVID-19 subjects for 6 months following their positive test results. This work was representative of short-term data, so the next steps for us are to wrap up data collection and interpret how the subjects have changed over this time."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210809144104.htm
Physical activity protects children from the adverse effects of digital media on their weight later in adolescence
August 9, 2021
Science Daily/University of Helsinki
Children's heavy digital media use is associated with a risk of being overweight later in adolescence. Physical activity protects children from the adverse effects of digital media on their weight later in adolescence.
A recently completed study shows that six hours of leisure-time physical activity per week at the age of 11 reduces the risk of being overweight at 14 years of age associated with heavy use of digital media.
Obesity in children and adolescents is one of the most significant health-related challenges globally. A study carried out by the Folkhälsan Research Center and the University of Helsinki investigated whether a link exists between the digital media use of Finnish school-age children and the risk of being overweight later in adolescence. In addition, the study looked into whether children's physical activity has an effect on this potential link.
The results were published in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health.
More than six hours of physical activity per week appears to reverse adverse effects of screen time
The study involved 4,661 children from the Finnish Health in Teens (Fin-HIT) study. The participating children reported how much time they spent on sedentary digital media use and physical activity outside school hours. The study demonstrated that heavy use of digital media at 11 years of age was associated with a heightened risk of being overweight at 14 years of age in children who reported engaging in under six hours per week of physical activity in their leisure time. In children who reported being physically active for six or more hours per week, such a link was not observed.
The study also took into account other factors potentially impacting obesity, such as childhood eating habits and the amount of sleep, as well as the amount of digital media use and physical activity in adolescence. In spite of the confounding factors, the protective role of childhood physical activity in the connection between digital media use in childhood and being overweight later in life was successfully confirmed.
Activity according to recommendations
"The effect of physical activity on the association between digital media use and being overweight has not been extensively investigated in follow-up studies so far," says Postdoctoral Researcher Elina Engberg.
Further research is needed to determine in more detail how much sedentary digital media use increases the risk of being overweight, and how much physical activity is needed, and at what intensity, to ward off such a risk. In this study, the amount of physical activity and use of digital media was reported by the children themselves, and the level of their activity was not surveyed, so there is a need for further studies.
"A good rule of thumb is to adhere to the physical activity guidelines for children and adolescents, according to which school-aged children and adolescents should be physically active in a versatile, brisk and strenuous manner for at least 60 minutes a day in a way that suits the individual, considering their age," says Engberg. In addition, excessive and extended sedentary activity should be avoided.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210809144112.htm
Exercise may boost kids’ vocabulary growth
New study suggests exercise can boost kids’ vocabulary growth
July 28, 2021
Science Daily/University of Delaware
Swimming a few laps likely won't turn your child into the next Katie Ledecky or Michael Phelps, but it just might help them become the next J.K. Rowling or Stephen King.
A recent study by University of Delaware researchers suggests exercise can boost kids' vocabulary growth. The article, published in the Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, details one of the first studies on the effect of exercise on vocabulary learning in children.
Children ages 6 to 12 were taught new words before doing one of three things -- swimming, taking part in CrossFit exercises or completing a coloring sheet. The children who swam were 13% more accurate in follow up tests of the vocabulary words.
It makes sense to the lead researcher, Maddy Pruitt, herself a former college swimmer who now regularly takes CrossFit classes. "Motor movement helps in encoding new words," she said, explaining that exercise is known to increase levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, a protein Pruitt describes as the "Miracle-Gro of the brain."
Why then, did swimming make a difference while CrossFit did not? Pruitt attributes it to the amount of energy each exercise demands of the brain. Swimming is an activity the kids could complete without much thought or instruction. It was more automatic, while the CrossFit exercises were new to them. The children needed to learn the moves, which required mental energy.
Pruitt conducted the research as part of her Master's Capstone Project and graduated in 2020. She now works as a speech language pathologist at an elementary school in South Carolina, where she puts her findings into practice.
"My sessions are very rarely at a table," she said. "I'll take my kids out to the playground or we'll take a walk around the school."
Pruitt's adviser and coauthor Giovanna Morini is building on the findings in her lab. Morini, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, said most research into exercise examines it from the angle of a healthy lifestyle, not much enters the domain of language acquisition. She said she sees this as a rich line of inquiry and has another student running a similar experiment now with toddlers.
"We were so excited about this study because it applies to clinicians, caregivers and educators who can put it into practice," Morini said. "It's simple stuff, nothing out of the ordinary. But it could really help boost the outcomes."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210728105611.htm
Living near woodlands is good for children and young people's mental health
July 19, 2021
Science Daily/University College London
Analysis of children and young people's proximity to woodlands has shown links with better cognitive development and a lower risk of emotional and behavioural problems, in research led by UCL and Imperial College London scientists that could influence planning decisions in urban areas.
In what is believed to be one of the largest studies of its kind, researchers used longitudinal data relating to 3,568 children and teenagers, aged nine to 15 years, from 31 schools across London. This period is a key time in the development of adolescents' thinking, reasoning and understanding of the world.
The study, published in Nature Sustainability, looked at the links between different types of natural urban environments and the pupils' cognitive development, mental health and overall well-being.
The environments were divided into what planners call green space (woods, meadows and parks) and blue space (rivers, lakes and the sea), with green space separated further into grassland and woodland. Researchers used satellite data to help calculate each adolescent's daily exposure rate to each of these environments within 50m, 100m, 250m and 500m of their home and school.
After adjusting for other variables, the results showed that higher daily exposure to woodland (but not grassland) was associated with higher scores for cognitive development, and a 16% lower risk of emotional and behavioural problems two years later.
A similar but smaller effect was seen for green space, with higher scores for cognitive development, but this was not seen for blue space. The researchers note though that access to blue space in the cohort studied was generally low.
Examples of other explanatory variables considered included the young person's age, ethnic background, gender, parental occupation and type of school, e.g., state or independent. The level of air pollution might have influenced adolescents' cognitive development, but researchers did not feel these observations were reliable or conclusive, and these require further investigations.
It is already estimated that one in 10 of London's children and adolescents between the ages of five and 16 suffer from a clinical mental health illness and excess costs are estimated between £11,030 and £59,130 annually for each person. As with adults, there is also evidence that natural environments play an important role in children and adolescents' cognitive development and mental health into adulthood, but less is known about why this is.
The results of this study suggest that urban planning decisions to optimise ecosystem benefits linked to cognitive development and mental health should carefully consider the type of natural environment included. Natural environments further away from an adolescent's residence and school may play an important role too, not just their immediate environment.
Lead author, PhD student Mikaël Maes (UCL Geography, UCL Biosciences and Imperial College London School of Public Health) said: "Previous studies have revealed positive associations between exposure to nature in urban environments, cognitive development and mental health. Why these health benefits are received remains unclear, especially in adolescents.
"These findings contribute to our understanding of natural environment types as an important protective factor for an adolescent's cognitive development and mental health and suggest that not every environment type may contribute equally to these health benefits.
"Forest bathing, for example (being immersed in the sights, sounds and smells of a forest), is a relaxation therapy that has been associated with physiological benefits, supporting the human immune function, reducing heart rate variability and salivary cortisol, and various psychological benefits. However, the reasons why we experience these psychological benefits from woodland remain unknown."
Joint senior author Professor Mireille Toledano (Director, Mohn Centre for Children's Health and Wellbeing and Investigator, MRC Centre for Environment and Health and Principal Investigator of the SCAMP study, Imperial College London) said: "It's been suggested previously that the benefits of natural environments to mental health are comparable in magnitude to family history, parental age and even more significant than factors like the degree of urbanisation around you, but lower than your parents' socio-economic status. Sensory and non-sensory pathways have been suggested as potentially important for delivering cognition and mental health benefits received from exposure to nature.
"It's critical for us to tease out why natural environments are so important to our mental health throughout the life course -- does the benefit derive from the physical exercise we do in these environments, from the social interactions we often have in them, or from the fauna and flora we get to enjoy in these environments or a combination of all of these?"
Joint senior author Professor Kate Jones (UCL Centre for Biodiversity & Environment Research, UCL Biosciences) said: "One possible explanation for our findings may be that audio-visual exposure through vegetation and animal abundance provides psychological benefits, of which both features are expected in higher abundance in woodland. Even though our results show that urban woodland is associated with adolescent's cognitive development and mental health, the cause of this association remains unknown. Further research is fundamental to our understanding of the links between nature and health."
To arrive at the findings, researchers analysed a longitudinal dataset of 3,568 adolescents between 2014 and 2018, whose residence was known, from the Study of Cognition, Adolescents and Mobile Phones (SCAMP) across the London metropolitan area. They assessed adolescents' mental health and overall well-being from a self-reported Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) -- covering areas such as emotional problems, conduct, hyperactivity and peer problems -- and the KIDSCREEN-10 Questionnaire taken by each adolescent for SCAMP.
Limitations of the study include an assumption that living or going to school near natural environments means more exposure to them, which may not always be the case due to how easily they can be accessed by a child or young person or how usable they are.
Also, a considerable proportion of the participants (52.21%) were in the group whose parents had a managerial/professional occupation, so adolescents in less favourable socio-economic groups may be underrepresented and pupils requiring special needs may be differently affected compared with their peers. Crime rates, which may have influenced the results too, were not taken into account.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210719120313.htm
Adult children with college degrees influence parents' health in later life
July 14, 2021
Science Daily/University at Buffalo
Having no children who completed college is negatively associated with parents' self-rated health and positively associated with depressive symptoms. Additionally, among parents with the highest propensity for having no children who complete college, the consequences on depressive symptoms are greatest.
Write down the benefits of obtaining a college degree and, more than likely, all the items on the completed list will relate to graduates: higher salaries, autonomous jobs and better access to health care, for instance. All of those factors, supported by extensive research, help draw a direct line connecting higher education and health. Similar research suggests how the education of parents affects their children.
Now, two University at Buffalo sociologists have used a new wave of data from a survey launched in 1994 to further extend the geometry linking educational attainment and health that demonstrates another dimension of the intergenerational effects of completing college. Their findings published recently in the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences suggest that adult children's educational attainment has an impact on their parents' mental and physical health.
"By analyzing these data we arrived at the conclusion that it was detrimental to parents' self-reported health and depressive symptoms if none of their children completed college," says Christopher Dennison, PhD, assistant professor of sociology in UB's College of Arts and Sciences, and a co-author of the paper with UB colleague Kristen Schultz Lee, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology. "The negative mental health outcome of the parents was in fact our strongest finding."
Dennison and Lee have both used the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) in their previous research. Add Health is a nationally representative longitudinal study of over 20,000 adolescents. It is the largest such survey of its kind. There was an initial wave of data on the parents (ages 30-60) when the survey began and another wave of data from roughly 2,000 of those original participants (now ages 50-80) gathered from 2015-17.
It's this latter data set that provided the researchers an opportunity to look at the intergenerational relationship between parents and children over time, while statistically balancing factors that could influence an aging parent's health.
"These results are particularly important in light of growing educational inequalities in the U.S. in the last several decades," says Lee. "We know how our own education impacts our own health; we know how parents' education impacts their children in many different ways; now we're trying to add to that understanding by explaining how children's education can have an impact on their parents.
"One thing I thought particularly interesting about these findings is that those parents who are the least likely to have a child attain a college education (low socioeconomic status) seem to benefit the most from a child having a college degree."
Dennison and Lee speculate on a number of elements that might be driving this association, including anxiety, assistance and lifestyle.
"Parents whose children have lower levels of education might spend more time worrying about their children. That has negative implications for their mental health and their self-rated health," says Lee. "Kids without a degree might need more help from their parents and are also less able to provide help if needed in return.
"Another possibility is that educated children might be doing a better job of helping their parents live healthier lives by encouraging exercise and a sensible diet."
What's clear is the evidence pointing to how the benefits of a college degree show up in the parents' health later in life.
"In this era when a college degree is of ever-growing importance, we see how the long-term investment in education is advantageous to the adult child's health, but also has benefits down the road for their parents too," says Dennison.
And it's this idea of an investment that speaks to how educational attainment reaches across generations from a policy perspective.
"Historically, there has been a debate over whether or not different generations are at odds with one another, with one generation taking resources away from another older or younger generation," says Lee. "But our findings point to the fundamentally inter-related nature of the interests and needs of different generations.
"Investing in one generation, in this case, positively benefits another generation."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210714151205.htm
Antibiotics in early life could affect brain development
July 14, 2021
Science Daily/Rutgers University
Antibiotic exposure early in life could alter human brain development in areas responsible for cognitive and emotional functions, according to a Rutgers researcher.
The laboratory study, published in the journal iScience, suggests that penicillin changes the microbiome -- the trillions of beneficial microorganisms that live in and on our bodies -- as well as gene expression, which allows cells to respond to its changing environment, in key areas of the developing brain. The findings suggest reducing widespread antibiotic use or using alternatives when possible to prevent neurodevelopment problems.
Penicillin and related medicines (like ampicillin and amoxicillin) are the most widely used antibiotics in children worldwide. In the United States, the average child receives nearly three courses of antibiotics before the age of 2. Similar or greater exposure rates occur in many other countries.
"Our previous work has shown that exposing young animals to antibiotics changes their metabolism and immunity. The third important development in early life involves the brain. This study is preliminary but shows a correlation between altering the microbiome and changes in the brain that should be further explored," said lead author Martin Blaser, director of the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine at Rutgers.
The study compared mice that were exposed to low-dose penicillin in utero or immediately after birth to those that were not exposed. They found that mice given penicillin experienced substantial changes in their intestinal microbiota and had altered gene expression in the frontal cortex and amygdala, two key areas in the brain responsible for the development of memory as well as fear and stress responses.
A growing body of evidence links phenomena in the intestinal tract with signaling to the brain, a field of study known as the "gut-brain-axis." If this pathway is disturbed, it can lead to permanent altering of the brain's structure and function and possibly lead to neuropsychiatric or neurodegenerative disorders in later childhood or adulthood.
"Early life is a critical period for neurodevelopment," Blaser said. "In recent decades, there has been a rise in the incidence of childhood neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and learning disabilities. Although increased awareness and diagnosis are likely contributing factors, disruptions in cerebral gene expression early in development also could be responsible."
Future studies are needed to determine whether antibiotics directly effect brain development or if molecules from the microbiome that travel to the brain disturb gene activity and cause cognitive deficits.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210714110520.htm
Species of gut bacteria linked to enhanced cognition and language skills in infant boys
Study offers compelling new evidence pointing to the importance of gut bacteria for neurodevelopment
July 13, 2021
Science Daily/University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry
Infant boys with a higher composition of a particular gut microbiota show enhanced neurodevelopment, according to a new study.
The University of Alberta-led research followed more than 400 infants from the CHILD Cohort Study (CHILD) at its Edmonton site. Boys with a gut bacterial composition that was high in the bacteria Bacteroidetes at one year of age were found to have more advanced cognition and language skills one year later. The finding was specific to male children.
"It's well known that female children score higher (at early ages), especially in cognition and language," said Anita Kozyrskyj, a professor of pediatrics at the U of A and principal investigator of the SyMBIOTA (Synergy in Microbiota) laboratory. "But when it comes to gut microbial composition, it was the male infants where we saw this obvious connection between the Bacteroidetes and the improved scores."
"The differences between male and female gut microbiota are very subtle, but we do know from CHILD Cohort Study data that girls at early ages are more likely to have more of these Bacteroidetes. So perhaps most girls have a sufficient number of Bacteroidetes and that's why they have improved scores over boys," added Kozyrskyj.
The researchers, led by Kozyrskyj and associate professor of pediatrics Piush Mandhane, studied bacteria found in fecal samples from the infants and identified three different groups exhibiting similar dominant clusters of bacteria. They then evaluated the infants on a variety of neural developmental scales. Of those groups, only the male infants with Bacteroidetes-dominant bacteria showed signs of enhanced neurodevelopment.
The research replicates similar findings from a U.S. study that also showed an association between Bacteroidetes and neural development.
According to Kozyrskyj, Bacteroidetes are one of a very few bacteria that produce metabolites called sphingolipids, which are instrumental for the formation and structure of neurons in the brain.
"It makes sense that if you have more of these microbes and they produce more sphingolipids, then you should see some improvement in terms of the formation of neuron connections in our brain and improved scores in cognition and language," she said.
According to Kozyrskyj, caesarean birth is one factor that can significantly deplete Bacteroidetes. Factors that positively influence gut microbiota composition in infants include breastfeeding, having a high-fibre diet, living with a dog and being exposed to nature and green spaces.
While the findings don't necessarily mean children with a lower proportion of Bacteroidetes will remain behind their peers in later childhood or adulthood, the researchers believe the study offers early promise ahttps://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210728105611.htms a way to potentially identify children at risk of neurodevelopmental disorders.
The team will continue to follow the infants participating in CHILD to determine whether the findings can be predictive of autism or attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Moving forward, the researchers are also examining several other factors that may have an impact on neurodevelopment in infants, including stress and gut colonization by the bacterium Clostridium difficile.
"Over the first one to two years of life, your brain is very malleable," said Kozyrskyj. "Now we're seeing a connection between its malleability and gut microbiota, and I think that is very important."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210713145850.htm
Air pollution exposure linked to poor academics in childhood
July 13, 2021
Science Daily/Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health
Children exposed to elevated levels of air pollution may be more likely to have poor inhibitory control during late childhood and poor academic skills in early adolescence, including spelling, reading comprehension, and math skills. Difficulty with inhibition in late childhood was found to be a precursor to later air pollution-related academic problems. Interventions that target inhibitory control might improve outcomes.
Results of the study by researchers at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH) at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Columbia University Irving Medical Center are published in the journal Environmental Research.
"Children with poor inhibitory control are less able to override a common response in favor of a more unusual one -- such as the natural response to say 'up' when an arrow is facing up or 'go' when a light is green -- and instead say 'down' or 'stop,'" says first author Amy Margolis, PhD, associate professor of medical psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. "By compromising childhood inhibitory control, prenatal exposure to air pollution may alter the foundation upon which later academic skills are built."
"When evaluating student's learning problems and formulating treatment plans, parents and teachers should consider that academic problems related to environmental exposures may require intervention focused on inhibitory control problems, rather than on content-related skill deficits, as is typical in interventions designed to address learning disabilities," Margolis adds.
"This study adds to a growing body of literature showing the deleterious health effects of prenatal exposure to air pollution on child health outcomes, including academic achievement," says co-author Julie Herbstman, PhD, CCCEH director and associate professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia Mailman School. "Reducing levels of air pollution may prevent these adverse outcomes and lead to improvements in children's academic achievement."
The new findings align with prior Columbia research finding a DNA marker for PAH exposure was associated with altered development of self-regulatory capacity and ADHD symptoms.
The study followed 200 children enrolled in a longitudinal cohort study in Northern Manhattan and the Bronx led by CCCEH researchers. Researchers collected measures of prenatal airborne polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH, a major component of air pollution) during the third trimester of pregnancy, a period when the fetus is highly vulnerable to environmental insults. Tests of inhibitory control were administered at or around age 10 and tests of academic achievement, at or around age 13.
Inhibitory Control and Learning
When students learn new concepts, they often need to override a previous habit in order to incorporate a new rule into a skill. For example, when learning to read a vowel a child will learn that the letter a has a short vowel sound "a as in apple" but a long sound when the consonant is followed by a "magic e," as in "rate."
Children exposed to elevated levels of air pollution may be more likely to have poor inhibitory control during late childhood and poor academic skills in early adolescence, including spelling, reading comprehension, and math skills. Difficulty with inhibition in late childhood was found to be a precursor to later air pollution-related academic problems. Interventions that target inhibitory control might improve outcomes.
Results of the study by researchers at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH) at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Columbia University Irving Medical Center are published in the journal Environmental Research.
"Children with poor inhibitory control are less able to override a common response in favor of a more unusual one -- such as the natural response to say 'up' when an arrow is facing up or 'go' when a light is green -- and instead say 'down' or 'stop,'" says first author Amy Margolis, PhD, associate professor of medical psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. "By compromising childhood inhibitory control, prenatal exposure to air pollution may alter the foundation upon which later academic skills are built."
"When evaluating student's learning problems and formulating treatment plans, parents and teachers should consider that academic problems related to environmental exposures may require intervention focused on inhibitory control problems, rather than on content-related skill deficits, as is typical in interventions designed to address learning disabilities," Margolis adds.
"This study adds to a growing body of literature showing the deleterious health effects of prenatal exposure to air pollution on child health outcomes, including academic achievement," says co-author Julie Herbstman, PhD, CCCEH director and associate professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia Mailman School. "Reducing levels of air pollution may prevent these adverse outcomes and lead to improvements in children's academic achievement."
The new findings align with prior Columbia research finding a DNA marker for PAH exposure was associated with altered development of self-regulatory capacity and ADHD symptoms.
The study followed 200 children enrolled in a longitudinal cohort study in Northern Manhattan and the Bronx led by CCCEH researchers. Researchers collected measures of prenatal airborne polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH, a major component of air pollution) during the third trimester of pregnancy, a period when the fetus is highly vulnerable to environmental insults. Tests of inhibitory control were administered at or around age 10 and tests of academic achievement, at or around age 13.
Inhibitory Control and Learning
When students learn new concepts, they often need to override a previous habit in order to incorporate a new rule into a skill. For example, when learning to read a vowel a child will learn that the letter a has a short vowel sound "a as in apple" but a long sound when the consonant is followed by a "magic e," as in "rate."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210713145849.htm
Newborns to three months should be stimulated to hold and reach for objects
July 8, 2021
Science Daily/Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Newborn infants and babies aged up to three months should be stimulated to manipulate objects and observe adults performing everyday tasks. This incentive helps their social, motor and cognitive development, researchers note in an article publishedin the May 2021 issue of the journal Infant Behavior & Development.
According to the authors, from the earliest age babies watch adults carrying out activities such as handling utensils and putting them away in drawers or closets. They should themselves have frequent contact with objects to develop the ability to hold things and reach out for them. Through social interaction, even newborns can learn to use their own bodies functionally and to perceive the links between their movements and their surroundings.
"We present evidence that neonatal imitation and manipulation activities are connected, and therefore propose stimulation practices based on seminal experimental designs where infants should be positioned in favorable postures to observe others acting in the world. This will have an impact on the way that early infants understand the social world and the chain of actions possible in this environment," they argue in the article.
The study was supported by FAPESP in partnership with the Maria Cecília Souto Vidigal Foundation (FMCSV).
For Priscilla Ferronato, a professor at the Health Sciences Institute of Paulista University (UNIP) in São Paulo, Brazil, and first author of the article, the study innovated by evidencing the link between social imitation and the motor system underlying manipulation. "Research published since 1970 has shown that babies can copy facial expressions as soon as they're born. We suggest they imitate manipulative motor actions just as much as expressions. When babies see adults using their hands, they copy the movements, and this helps them use their own hands," she said.
Babies are unable to reach for objects in the first three months of life. "Carers usually stimulate them to use their hands only after they learn the reaching movement," she said. "We propose the opposite: encouraging them to reach out before they can do so of their own accord."
In the article, the researchers present a review of the scientific literature on the subject and advocate a novel approach to the understanding of imitation and manual activities. The suggestions are based on the reproduction of scenarios that replicate experimental situations in classic studies of child development but are simple and easily adapted.
One of the exercises proposed consists of placing the baby's hands first on a smooth surface and then on an object with a rough surface to induce an awareness of the difference involved in terms of grasping and holding. Another is offering a finger for the baby to hold and smiling to reinforce the association between touch and visual stimulus.
A third proposal entails shining a flashlight or smartphone in a dimly lit room just above the baby's chest to stimulate use of the arms as the baby tries to seize the beam of light.
"We want this information to be made available to professionals in daycare centers for practical application, and also to parents because at this early age babies are usually at home. Many parents have no idea babies are capable of learning in the first two or three months of their lives," Ferronato said.
Last year the foundation published a book on interaction between parents or carers and infants (Primeiríssima Infância -- Interações: Comportamentos de pais e cuidadores de crianças de 0 a 3 anos), according to which 21% of parents interviewed said children start learning after the age of 6 months, while the same percentage thought the threshold was 1 year. Most of the 58% who answered that babies learn in the womb or start learning shortly after birth had a university degree and were relatively well-off.
Developing skills
Early childhood is defined in Brazilian law as the first six years of a person's life (Lei 13257/2016). Researchers and organizations often define infancy as the first three years of life. Around 10 million children can be classed as infants under this definition, according to data from the 2019 Continuous National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) conducted by IBGE, Brazil's national census bureau.
The first 1,000 days, from conception to the child's second birthday, are considered the most important from the standpoint of physical and mental development. What happens in this period can determine countless factors in adulthood. Sometimes referred to as the "golden days," they are also crucial for learning because of the brain's plasticity.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210708135335.htm
Impulsiveness tied to faster eating in children, can lead to obesity
Research also suggests cravings after sight and/or smell of food linked to inability to self-soothe in kids
July 7, 2021
Science Daily/University at Buffalo
Children who eat slower are less likely to be extroverted and impulsive, according to a new study co-led by the University at Buffalo and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
The research, which sought to uncover the relationship between temperament and eating behaviors in early childhood, also found that kids who were highly responsive to external food cues (the urge to eat when food is seen, smelled or tasted) were more likely to experience frustration and discomfort and have difficulties self-soothing.
These findings are critical because faster eating and greater responsiveness to food cues have been linked to obesity risk in children, says Myles Faith, PhD, co-author and professor of counseling, school and educational psychology in the UB Graduate School of Education.
The research, published in June in Pediatric Obesity, supports the integration of temperament into studies of and treatment for childhood obesity, a connection Faith deemed in need of further exploration in a previous study he co-led.
"Temperament is linked to many child developmental and behavioral outcomes, yet despite emerging evidence, few studies have examined its relationship with pediatric obesity," said co-lead investigator Robert Berkowitz, MD, emeritus professor at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Weight and Eating Disorders Research Program at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
Co-lead investigator Alyssa Button, doctoral candidate in the UB Graduate School of Education, is the first author.
The researchers surveyed 28 participants beginning a family intervention program to reduce eating speed among 4- to 8-year-old children with or at risk for obesity.
The study examined the associations between three eating behaviors and three facets of temperament. The eating behaviors included responsiveness to feeling full (internal food cues); responsiveness to seeing, smelling and tasting food (external food cues); and eating speed. Temperament consisted of extroversion and impulsivity (also known as surgency); self-control; and the inability to self-sooth negative emotions such as anger, fear and sadness.
Among the findings is that children who respond well to feeling full exhibit more self-control. More research is needed to understand the role parents play in their children's temperament and eating behavior, says Button.
"Parents may use food to soothe temperamental children and ease negative emotions," says Button, also a senior research support specialist in the Department of Pediatrics in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB. "Future research should examine the different ways parents feed their children in response to their temperament, as well as explore whether the relationship between temperament and eating behaviors is a two-way street. Could the habit of eating slower, over time, lead to lower impulsiveness?"
"This study established relationships between temperament and eating patterns in children; however, there is still the question of chicken-and-egg and which comes first?" says Faith. "Research that follows families over time is needed to untangle these developmental pathways."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210707140721.htm
Importance of teaching children about environmental issues
July 7, 2021
Science Daily/University of Exeter
Environmental education provision needs greater investment and innovation if future generations are to be able to respond fully to the climate emergency, experts have said.
The deepening environmental crisis will continue to worsen if there is not significant support and investment in environmental and science education, researchers have warned. Reforms would help young people to address the complex, interlinked and dynamic issues of our contemporary situation.
The experts argue Governments and other organisations must direct more funding to education innovation in response to consistent warnings from scientists about trends in the deteriorating state of ecosystems, biodiversity and climate, amongst other environmental issues.
Writing in Environmental Education Research, Alan Reid, from Monash University, Justin Dillon, from the University of Exeter, Jo-Anne Ferreira, from the University of Southern Queensland and Nicole Ardoin from Stanford University, who are senior editors of the journal, say environmental education is a "cornerstone for the social and environmental changes" needed in the future.
Environmental and science education helps people to identify fake information and ideologies, and understand and respond appropriately to warnings about the climate emergency.
They add that consensus on our environmental predicaments is not simply a matter for scientists, however. It must be supported by those in the humanities, arts, and social sciences, and wider society. Only then will contemporary calls by organisations such as UNEP and UNESCO that 'environmental education be a core component of all education systems at all levels by 2025', have a chance of gaining the multilateral and multileveled support the situation so urgently requires.
The academics highlight international surveys that show many governments continue to fail to support and invest enough in environmental and sustainability education across pre-school, school, college and university settings.
Professor Ferreira said: "The research base is clear about the superiority of whole-school approaches to quick curriculum fixes for addressing topics such as the climate emergency. The existential risk aspects also mean we need to look at investment and innovation in lifelong learning and non-school based provision, alongside examining the focus of current initial teacher education and continuing professional development."
Professor Reid said: "The popularity of outdoor education centres and activities are testament to the broader base of interest in environment and nature, as well as when arts, media and civil society addresses the climate crisis. Flagship environmental and science communication documentaries by the likes of David Attenborough examining the causes and effects of the climate emergency whet many people's appetites for understanding more from credible sources. Sir David's own learning journey in coming to understand the urgency of the situation underscores the rich learning opportunities available to us all, particularly in the run up to COP26 in Glasgow."
He added: "Ensuring any form of environmental education is relevant, coherent, fit for purpose, funded appropriately, and available to current and future generations within and beyond the curriculum will be crucial to addressing sound and pertinent warnings from scientists."
Professor Dillon said: "Global leaders should be discussing how to reimagine, recreate and restore environmental education to reduce the consequences of the environmental crisis. Countries should embed environmental and science education throughout society in ways that make sense locally."
Professor Ardoin said: "Only by investing in education -- and especially environmental and sustainability education -- will it be possible to radically alter the course we are currently on, and thus demonstrate to ourselves and future generations that sufficient heed was given to our warnings."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210707112408.htm