Physical Activity, School Performance May Be Linked
January 4, 2012
Science Daily/JAMA and Archives Journals
A systematic review of previous studies suggests that there may be a positive relationship between physical activity and the academic performance of children, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
"According to the best-evidence synthesis, we found strong evidence of a significant positive relationship between physical activity and academic performance. The findings of one high-quality intervention study and one high-quality observational study suggest that being more physically active is positively related to improved academic performance in children," the authors comment.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120102180846.htm
How chronic stress short-circuits parenting
December 9, 2011
Science Daily/University of Rochester
Parents under long-term stress often find it challenging to tap into the patience, responsiveness, and energy required for effective child rearing. Now research helps to explain why chronic stress and parenting are such a toxic mix. The study finds that ongoing strains, like poverty or depression, disrupt the body's natural stress response, making mothers more likely to engage in a host of problematic parenting behaviors.
"Stress gets under your skin," explains Melissa Sturge-Apple, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Rochester and lead author on the Development and Psychopathology paper to be published in October. "It literally changes the way a mother's body responds to the normal demands of small children and those changes make it much harder to parent positively."
Although the effects of stress have been well documented in children and linked to a variety of diseases in adults, this is one of the first studies to look specifically at stress and parenting, according to the researchers. The findings point to the corrosive effects of poverty or depression on an individual's physiology and help to explain why people feel and act the way they do when faced with ongoing psychological or economic pressure, she says.
Although the popular image of depression is of someone who is listless and sad, Sturge-Apple points out that the study confirms what clinicians have long observed: that depression in mothers sometimes is linked to harsh, highly reactive parenting, not subdued mothering. This study helps to explain the biological basis of such behavior; the stress response systems of moms suffering from depression are on high alert, oversensitive to social stressors and unable to calm down, explains Sturge-Apple.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111005122235.htm
Abused girls may have higher risk of heart disease, stroke as adults
November 30, 2011
Science Daily/American Heart Association
Sexually and physically abused girls may have higher risks for heart attacks, heart disease and strokes as adults, according to new research.
In the study, compared to women who weren't molested or raped as children or teens, women who reported:
Repeated episodes of forced sex in childhood or adolescence had a 62 percent higher risk of cardiovascular disease as adults.
Severe physical abuse in childhood or adolescence was associated with a 45 percent increased risk of cardiovascular events.
Mild to moderate physical or sexual abuse was not associated with increased risk.
"The single biggest factor explaining the link between severe child abuse and adult cardiovascular disease was the tendency of abused girls to have gained more weight throughout adolescence and into adulthood,' said Janet Rich-Edwards, Sc.D., M.P.H., lead author of the study and associate professor in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Mass.
"Women who experience abuse need to take special care of their physical and emotional well-being to reduce their risk of chronic disease," Rich-Edwards said. "Primary care health professionals need to consider childhood abuse histories of women as they transition into adulthood but to help the health professionals prevent cardiovascular disease among women with a history of abuse, we need to learn more about specific psychological, lifestyle, and medical interventions to improve the health of abuse survivors."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111113141258.htm
Frequent 'heading' in soccer can lead to brain injury and cognitive impairment
November 29, 2011
Science Daily/Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Using advanced imaging techniques and cognitive tests, researchers have shown that repeatedly heading a soccer ball increases the risk for brain injury.
The researchers used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), an advanced MRI-based imaging technique, on 38 amateur soccer players (average age: 30.8 years) who had all played the sport since childhood. They were asked to recall the number of times they headed the ball during the past year. (Heading is when players deliberately hit or field the soccer ball with their head.) Researchers ranked the players based on heading frequency and then compared the brain images of the most frequent headers with those of the remaining players. They found that frequent headers showed brain injury similar to that seen in patients with concussion, also known as mild traumatic brain injury (TBI).
The findings are especially concerning given that soccer is the world's most popular sport with popularity growing in the U.S., especially among children. Of the 18 million Americans who play soccer, 78 percent are under the age of eighteen. Soccer balls are known to travel at speeds as high as 34 miles per hour during recreational play, and more than twice that during professional play.
"These two studies present compelling evidence that brain injury and cognitive impairment can result from heading a soccer ball with high frequency," Dr. Lipton said. "These are findings that should be taken into consideration in planning future research to develop approaches to protect soccer players."
As there appears to be a safe range for heading frequency, additional research can help refine this number, which can then be used to establish heading guidelines. As in other sports, the frequency of potentially harmful actions in practice and games could be monitored and restricted based on confirmed unsafe exposure thresholds.
"In the past, pitchers in Little League Baseball sustained shoulder injuries at a rate that was alarming," Dr. Lipton noted. "But ongoing research has helped shape various approaches, including limits on the amount of pitching a child performs, which have substantially reduced the incidence of these injuries."
"Brain injury due to heading in children, if we confirm that it occurs, may not show up on our radar because the impairment will not be immediate and can easily be attributed to other causes like ADHD or learning disabilities," continued Dr. Lipton. "We, including the agencies that supervise and encourage soccer play, need to do the further research to precisely define the impact of excessive heading on children and adults in order to develop parameters within which soccer play will be safe over the long term."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111129092420.htm
Friendship makes a difference in stress regulation
November 21, 2011
Science Daily/Society for Research in Child Development
A nationwide Dutch study of 100 fourth graders sought to determine whether victimization and exclusion by peers were related to increases in cortisol (a stress hormone), and whether friendships moderated this association. The study found that children who were excluded by their classmates had elevated levels of cortisol at school, indicating that exclusion is stressful. Victimization by classmates wasn't associated with increased cortisol levels, suggesting that victimization is not as stressful as exclusion.
Children who were excluded by their classmates had elevated levels of cortisol at school, the study found. And they had a smaller decline in cortisol over the course of the day. Both of these findings may indicate that exclusion is stressful. This was even more pronounced for excluded kids who had few friends or had friendships that were characterized as low in quality.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111026091229.htm
High childhood IQ linked to subsequent illicit drug use
November 15, 2011
Science Daily/BMJ-British Medical Journal
A high childhood IQ may be linked to subsequent illegal drug use, particularly among women, new research suggests.
"Although most studies have suggested that higher child or adolescent IQ prompts the adoption of a healthy lifestyle as an adult, other studies have linked higher childhood IQ scores to excess alcohol intake and alcohol dependency in adulthood," write the authors.
Although it is not yet clear exactly why there should be a link between high IQ and illicit drug use, the authors point to previous research, showing that highly intelligent people are open to experiences and keen on novelty and stimulation.
Other research has also shown that brainy children are often easily bored and suffer at the hands of their peers for being different, "either of which could conceivably increase vulnerability to using drugs as an avoidant coping strategy," explain the authors.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111114221018.htm
Routine head hits in school sports may cause brain injury
November 14, 2011
Science Daily/University of Rochester Medical Center
The brain scans of high school football and hockey players showed subtle injury -- even if they did not suffer a concussion -- after taking routine hits to the head during the normal course of play, according to a new study.
The research, reported online in the journal Magnetic Resonance Imaging, is preliminary, involving a small sample of athletes, but nonetheless raises powerful questions about the consequences of the mildest head injury among youths with developing brains, said lead author Jeffrey Bazarian, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of Emergency Medicine at URMC with a special interest in sports concussions.
Measurements in the study at hand showed many changes in the brain of the player with the diagnosed concussion; however an intermediate level of changes also occurred among the players who reported anywhere from 26 to 399 total sub-concussive blows. The fewest changes occurred in the control group, as expected.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111114133738.htm
Functional brain pathways disrupted in children with ADHD
November 30, 2011
Science Daily/Radiological Society of North America
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, researchers have identified abnormalities in the brains of children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder that may serve as a biomarker for the disorder, according to a new study.
ADHD is one of the most common childhood disorders, affecting an estimated five to eight percent of school-aged children. Symptoms, which may continue into adulthood, include inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity behaviors that are out of the normal range for a child's age and development.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, there is no single test capable of diagnosing a child with the disorder. As a result, difficult children are often incorrectly labeled with ADHD while other children with the disorder remain undiagnosed.
"Diagnosing ADHD is very difficult because of its wide variety of behavioral symptoms," said lead researcher Xiaobo Li, Ph.D., assistant professor of radiology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. "Establishing a reliable imaging biomarker of ADHD would be a major contribution to the field."
For the study, Dr. Li and colleagues performed fMRI on 18 typically developing children and 18 children diagnosed with ADHD (age range 9 to 15 years). While undergoing fMRI, the children engaged in a test of sustained attention in which they were shown a set of three numbers and then asked whether subsequent groups of numbers matched the original set. For each participant, fMRI produced a brain activation map that revealed which regions of the brain became activated while the child performed the task. The researchers then compared the brain activation maps of the two groups.
Compared to the normal control group, the children with ADHD showed abnormal functional activity in several regions of the brain involved in the processing of visual attention information. The researchers also found that communication among the brain regions within this visual attention-processing pathway was disrupted in the children with ADHD.
"What this tells us is that children with ADHD are using partially different functional brain pathways to process this information, which may be caused by impaired white matter pathways involved in visual attention information processing," Dr. Li said.
Dr. Li said much of the research conducted on ADHD has focused on the impulsivity component of the disorder. "Inattention is an equally important component of this disorder," she said, "and our findings contribute to understanding the pathology of inattentiveness in ADHD."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111128120138.htm
Wake-sleep patterns affect brain synapses during adolescence
October 10, 2011
Science Daily/University of Wisconsin-Madison
An ongoing lack of sleep during adolescence could lead to more than dragging, foggy teens, a new study suggests.
"One possible implication of our study is that if you lose too much sleep during adolescence, especially chronically, there may be lasting consequences in terms of the wiring of the brain," says Dr. Chiara Cirelli, associate professor in the department of psychiatry at the School of Medicine and Public Health.
"These results using acute manipulations of just eight to 10 hours show that the time spent asleep or awake affects how many synapses are being formed or removed in the adolescent brain," Cirelli says. "The important next question is what happens with chronic sleep restriction, a condition that many adolescents are often experiencing."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111009140219.htm
Early to bed and early to rise: it's keeping kids leaner
September 30, 2011
Science Daily/American Academy of Sleep Medicine
Researchers recording the bedtimes and wake times of 2,200 Australian youths found that the night owls were 1.5 times more likely to become obese than the early birds, twice as likely to be physically inactive and 2.9 times more likely to sit in front of the TV and computer or play video games for more hours than guidelines recommend.
A study in the Oct. 1 issue of the journal Sleep recorded the bedtimes and wake times of 2,200 Australian participants, ages 9 to 16, and compared their weights and uses of free time over four days. Children who went to bed late and got up late were 1.5 times more likely to become obese than those who went to bed early and got up early. Furthermore, late-nighters were almost twice as likely to be physically inactive and 2.9 times more likely to sit in front of the TV and computer or play video games for more hours than guidelines recommend.
"The children who went to bed late and woke up late, and the children who went to bed early and woke up early got virtually the same amount of sleep in total," said co-author Carol Maher, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow with the University of South Australia. "Scientists have realized in recent years that children who get less sleep tend to do worse on a variety of health outcomes, including the risk of being overweight and obese. Our study suggests that the timing of sleep is even more important."
Maher said mornings are more conducive to physical activity for young people than nights, which offer prime-time TV programming and social networking opportunities. This relationship between time of day and available activities might explain why more sedentary and screen-based behaviors were observed with later bedtimes, she said. At a time when research is showing that teenagers have a natural tendency to stay up late and wake late, the results of this study could stand as a warning.
"It is widely accepted that the sleep patterns of adolescents are fundamentally different from children and adults, and that it is normal for adolescents to stay up very late and sleep in late in the morning," Maher said. "Our findings show that this sleeping pattern is associated with unfavorable activity patterns and health outcomes, and that the adolescents who don't follow this sleep pattern do better."
Other findings from the University of South Australia study:
Early-bed/early-risers went to bed 70 to 90 minutes earlier, woke up 60 to 80 minutes earlier and accumulated 27 minutes more moderate to vigorous physical activity each day than late-risers.
Late-bed/late-risers watched TV, played video games or were online 48 minutes longer each day than early-bed/early risers, primarily between 7 p.m. and midnight.
Only 12 percent of late-bed/late-risers had an average of two hours or less screen time per day, which is recommended for children and teens by the Australian Department of Health and Aging. In comparison, 28 percent of early-bed/early risers met the recommendation for screen time.
On a broad scale, late-bed/late-risers replaced about 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity with 30 minutes of sedentary behavior each day, relative to the early-bed/early-rise group.
Body-mass index (BMI) scores were higher in late-risers than early-risers, and late-risers were more likely to be overweight or obese. Late-bed/late-risers tended to have few siblings, live in major cities, come from lower household incomes and have a part-time job.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110930052216.htm
Prescribed stimulant use for ADHD continues to rise steadily
September 29, 2011
Science Daily/NIH/National Institute of Mental Health
The prescribed use of stimulant medications to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) rose slowly but steadily from 1996 to 2008, according to a new study.
ADHD is one of the most common childhood disorders, and can continue through adolescence and adulthood. Symptoms include difficulty staying focused and paying attention, difficulty controlling behavior, and hyperactivity (over-activity). The condition is frequently treated with stimulants such as methylphenidate (e.g., Ritalin), amphetamines (e.g., Adderall) or other types of medications. Behavioral therapies can also be effective.
During the 1990s, stimulant prescription use increased significantly, going from a prevalence rate among youth of 0.6 percent in 1987 to 2.7 percent in 1997, with the rate stabilizing around 2.9 percent in 2002. Recent reports, however, suggest that the prescribed use of these medications and the diagnosis of ADHD have continued to rise. Based on the Health Resources and Services Administration's National Survey of Children's Health, the percentage of children age 4-17 years diagnosed with ADHD increased from 7.8 percent in 2003 to 9.5 percent in 2007.
Overall, prescription use among 6-12-year-olds was highest, going from 4.2 percent in 1996 to 5.1 percent in 2008. But the fastest growth of prescribed use occurred among 13-18-year-olds, going from 2.3 percent in 1996 to 4.9 percent in 2008. "This continuous increase among teens likely reflects a recent realization that ADHD often persists as children age. They do not always grow out of their symptoms," said Dr. Vitiello.
Prescription use among preschoolers remained very low at 0.1 percent from 2004 onward and decreased between 2002 and 2008, suggesting that stimulant use among very young children continues to be disfavored. Boys continued to be three times more likely to be prescribed a stimulant than girls, and use among white children continued to be higher than among black or Hispanic children (4.4 percent in 2008 among whites, compared to 2.9 percent in blacks and 2.1 percent in Hispanics).
However, prescribed stimulant use is increasing among racial and ethnic minorities, likely suggesting more recognition of ADHD and acceptance of psychopharmacological treatment among these groups, according to the authors.
In addition, rates were substantially lower in Western states compared to other regions of the nation, with no increase in recent years, a finding consistent with other studies. In comparison, rates in the Northeast increased from 2.7 percent in 2002 to 4.6 percent in 2008.
"These persistent differences in prescribed stimulant use related to age, racial and ethnic background, and geographical location indicate substantial variability in how families and doctors approach ADHD treatment throughout the United States," said Dr. Zuvekas.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110928105714.htm
People learn while they sleep
September 27, 2011
Science Daily/Michigan State University
People may be learning while they're sleeping -- an unconscious form of memory that is still not well understood, according to a new study.
The findings are highlighted in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
"We speculate that we may be investigating a separate form of memory, distinct from traditional memory systems," said Kimberly Fenn, assistant professor of psychology and lead researcher on the project. "There is substantial evidence that during sleep, your brain is processing information without your awareness and this ability may contribute to memory in a waking state."
In the study of more than 250 people, Fenn and Zach Hambrick, associate professor of psychology, suggest people derive vastly different effects from this "sleep memory" ability, with some memories improving dramatically and others not at all. This ability is a new, previously undefined form of memory.
"You and I could go to bed at the same time and get the same amount of sleep," Fenn said, "but while your memory may increase substantially, there may be no change in mine." She added that most people showed improvement.
Fenn said she believes this potential separate memory ability is not being captured by traditional intelligence tests and aptitude tests such as the SAT and ACT.
"This is the first step to investigate whether or not this potential new memory construct is related to outcomes such as classroom learning," she said.
It also reinforces the need for a good night's sleep. According to the National Sleep Foundation, people are sleeping less every year, with 63 percent of Americans saying their sleep needs are not being met during the week.
"Simply improving your sleep could potentially improve your performance in the classroom," Fenn said.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110927124653.htm
Some brain wiring continues to develop well into our 20s
September 23, 2011
http://images.sciencedaily.com/2011/09/110922134617-large.jpg
Science Daily/University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry
The human brain doesn't stop developing at adolescence, but continues well into our 20s, demonstrates recent research. It has been a long-held belief in medical communities that the human brain stopped developing in adolescence. But now there is evidence that this is in fact not the case.
It has been a long-held belief in medical communities that the human brain stopped developing in adolescence. But now there is evidence that this is in fact not the case, thanks to medical research conducted in the Department of Biomedical Engineering by researcher Christian Beaulieu, an Alberta Innovates -- Health Solutions scientist, and by his PhD student at the time, Catherine Lebel. Lebel recently moved to the United States to work at UCLA, where she is a post-doctoral fellow working with an expert in brain-imaging research.
"This is the first long-range study, using a type of imaging that looks at brain wiring, to show that in the white matter there are still structural changes happening during young adulthood," says Lebel. "The white matter is the wiring of the brain; it connects different regions to facilitate cognitive abilities. So the connections are strengthening as we age in young adulthood."
"What's interesting is a lot of psychiatric illness and other disorders emerge during adolescence, so some of the thought might be if certain tracts start to degenerate too soon, it may not be responsible for these disorders, but it may be one of the factors that makes someone more susceptible to developing these disorders," says Beaulieu.
"It's nice to provide insight into what the brain is doing in a healthy control population and then use that as a springboard so others can ask questions about how different clinical disorders like psychiatric disease and neurological disease may be linked to brain structure as the brain progresses with age."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110922134617.htm
Stress drives alcoholics' children to drink
September 24, 2011
Science Daily/University of Gothenburg
If either of your parents has a drink problem, there is a greater risk that you will consume more alcohol after stressful situations, new research from Sweden suggests.
It has long been known that alcoholics' children are 50% more likely to have a drink problem in the future, and new research from the Sahlgrenska Academy is shedding new light on this link. Carried out by researcher Anna Söderpalm Gordh, the study has been published in the most recent issue of the journal Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behaviour.
"The results show that people with parents who have a history of alcohol abuse drink more than others when exposed to stress," says Söderpalm Gordh.
This behaviour can have negative consequences in the long term. It is no secret that people who consume large quantities of alcohol every time they drink run a higher risk of developing a dependency in the future.
"If alcohol relaxes you when you're stressed, then you should try to find other ways of calming yourself down -- relaxation exercises, for example," says Söderpalm Gordh.
About Alcoholism
Alcoholism is usually divided into two categories: type I and type II. Type I is largely dependent on our genes' interaction with the environment, for example the people we socialise with or the crises in our lives, while type II involves a considerable genetic risk of developing a drink problem, irrespective of our environment.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110920075518.htm