Exercise helps adults with high-anxiety sensitivity quit smoking
February 24, 2016
Science Daily/University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin)
Exercise helps smokers with a high risk for cessation failure due to emotional distress finally kick the habit, according to psychologists. The research suggests that exercise can reduce anxiety sensitivity and depressive symptoms, doubling the chances of cessation for these adults.
According to a study in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, between 20 and 33 percent of smokers are considered to have high-anxiety sensitivity -- or fear of anxiety and related sensations such as a racing heart, sweating or dizziness -- and smoke to cope with stress, making it harder to quit.
"Anxiety and depressive symptoms and syndromes are the most prevalent psychiatric conditions in the general population and are remarkably comorbid with smoking," said psychology professor Jasper Smits, lead author of the study. "Those with high-anxiety sensitivity experience greater problems with nicotine withdrawal, which is a strong predictor of lapse and subsequent relapse."
Smits' research, however, suggests that exercise can reduce anxiety sensitivity and depressive symptoms, doubling the chances of cessation for these adults.
Participants were daily smokers who were screened for anxiety sensitivity and randomly assigned to a 15-week intervention that included thrice weekly exercise (72 individuals) or wellness education (64 individuals) sessions in combination with cognitive behavioral therapy and optional nicotine replacement therapy patches.
Exercise sessions required 25-minutes of "vigorous" work (77 to 88 percent of maximum heart rate), and wellness education sessions included healthy life-style discussions and weekly wellness goals.
Abstinence was assessed through self-reporting and saliva samples. At the end of treatment, 26 percent of those who exercised successfully abstained from smoking, and 12 percent who attended wellness sessions abstained. After six months, 23 percent of the exercise group abstained, and 10 percent of the wellness education group continued to abstain
The National Health Interview Survey found that smoking among U.S. adults without psychiatric disorders decreased steadily between 1997 and 2011 (from 24.1 percent to 18.2 percent), while smoking among adults with some form of psychiatric disorders has remained relatively stable (43.6 percent to 42.1 percent).
"This group is particularly at risk for cessation failure, and our findings suggest that exercise can reduce that risk," Smits said.
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160224133636.htm
Vigorous exercise boosts critical neurotransmitters, may help restore mental health
February 25, 2016
Science Daily/University of California - Davis Health System
People who exercise have better mental fitness, and a new imaging study now shows why. The finding offers new insights into brain metabolism and why exercise could become an important part of treating depression and other neuropsychiatric disorders linked with deficiencies in neurotransmitters, which drive communications between the brain cells that regulate physical and emotional health.
https://images.sciencedaily.com/2016/02/160225101241_1_540x360.jpg
Richard Maddock and his team conducted MRI exams of people before and after vigorous exercise to determine the effect of exercise on neurotransmitters.
Credit: Image courtesy of University of California - Davis Health System
Published in this week's issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, the finding offers new insights into brain metabolism and why exercise could become an important part of treating depression and other neuropsychiatric disorders linked with deficiencies in neurotransmitters, which drive communications between the brain cells that regulate physical and emotional health.
"Major depressive disorder is often characterized by depleted glutamate and GABA, which return to normal when mental health is restored," said study lead author Richard Maddock, professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. "Our study shows that exercise activates the metabolic pathway that replenishes these neurotransmitters."
The research also helps solve a persistent question about the brain, an energy-intensive organ that consumes a lot of fuel in the form of glucose and other carbohydrates during exercise. What does it do with that extra fuel?
"From a metabolic standpoint, vigorous exercise is the most demanding activity the brain encounters, much more intense than calculus or chess, but nobody knows what happens with all that energy," Maddock said. "Apparently, one of the things it's doing is making more neurotransmitters."
The striking change in how the brain uses fuel during exercise has largely been overlooked in brain health research. While the new findings account for a small part of the brain's energy consumption during exercise, they are an important step toward understanding the complexity of brain metabolism. The research also hints at the negative impact sedentary lifestyles might have on brain function, along with the role the brain might play in athletic endurance.
"It is not clear what causes people to 'hit the wall' or get suddenly fatigued when exercising," Maddock said. "We often think of this point in terms of muscles being depleted of oxygen and energy molecules. But part of it may be that the brain has reached its limit."
To understand how exercise affects the brain, the team studied 38 healthy volunteers. Participants exercised on a stationary bicycle, reaching around 85 percent of their predicted maximum heart rate. To measure glutamate and GABA, the researchers conducted a series of imaging studies using a powerful 3-tesla MRI to detect nuclear magnetic resonance spectra, which can identify several compounds based on the magnetic behavior of hydrogen atoms in molecules.
The researchers measured GABA and glutamate levels in two different parts of the brain immediately before and after three vigorous exercise sessions lasting between eight and 20 minutes, and made similar measurements for a control group that did not exercise. Glutamate or GABA levels increased in the participants who exercised, but not among the non-exercisers. Significant increases were found in the visual cortex, which processes visual information, and the anterior cingulate cortex, which helps regulate heart rate, some cognitive functions and emotion. While these gains trailed off over time, there was some evidence of longer-lasting effects.
"There was a correlation between the resting levels of glutamate in the brain and how much people exercised during the preceding week," Maddock said. "It's preliminary information, but it's very encouraging."
These findings point to the possibility that exercise could be used as an alternative therapy for depression. This could be especially important for patients under age 25, who sometimes have more side effects from selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), anti-depressant medications that adjust neurotransmitter levels.
For follow-up studies, Maddock and the team hope to test whether a less-intense activity, such as walking, offers similar brain benefits. They would also like to use their exercise-plus-imaging method on a study of patients with depression to determine the types of exercise that offer the greatest benefit.
"We are offering another view on why regular physical activity may be important to prevent or treat depression," Maddock said. "Not every depressed person who exercises will improve, but many will. It's possible that we can help identify the patients who would most benefit from an exercise prescription."
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160225101241.htm
Want a younger brain? Stay in school -- and take the stairs
Education and physical activity can significantly slow down grey-matter aging
March 9, 2016
Science Daily/Concordia University
A new study shows that the more flights of stairs a person climbs, and the more years of school a person completes, the 'younger' their brain physically appears.
In a study recently published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging, researchers led by Jason Steffener, a scientist at Concordia University's Montreal-based PERFORM Centre, show that the more flights of stairs a person climbs, and the more years of school a person completes, the "younger" their brain physically appears.
The researchers found that brain age decreases by 0.95 years for each year of education, and by 0.58 years for every daily flight of stairs climbed -- i.e., the stairs between two consecutive floors in a building.
"There already exist many 'Take the stairs' campaigns in office environments and public transportation centres," says Steffener. "This study shows that these campaigns should also be expanded for older adults, so that they can work to keep their brains young."
For the study, Steffener and his co-authors used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to non-invasively examine the brains of 331 healthy adults who ranged in age from 19 to 79.
They measured the volume of grey matter found in participants' brains because its decline, caused by neural shrinkage and neuronal loss, is a very visible part of the chronological aging process. Then, they compared brain volume to the participants' reported number of flights of stairs climbed, and years of schooling completed.
Results were clear: the more flights of stairs climbed, and the more years of schooling completed, the younger the brain.
"This study shows that education and physical activity affect the difference between a physiological prediction of age and chronological age, and that people can actively do something to help their brains stay young," he says.
"In comparison to many other forms of physical activity, taking the stairs is something most older adults can and already do at least once a day, unlike vigorous forms of physical activity," says Steffener, who is also a researcher at the Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal.
"This is encouraging because it demonstrates that a simple thing like climbing stairs has great potential as an intervention tool to promote brain health."
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160309125520.htm
Blame your noisy brain for misses and fumbles
Study finds that practice doesn't always make perfect
March 10, 2016
Science Daily/Duke University
No matter how much we practice a given movement, it will still be imperfect. The reason for this frustration, according to a new study by neuroscientists, is in how we sense the world. A given individual neuron varies in its activity even when we see exactly the same scene, producing a certain kind of brain noise that affects our responding movements.
https://images.sciencedaily.com/2016/03/160310124904_1_540x360.jpg
It's not new that our brains, and the neurons within, are noisy. The exact timing of a neuron as it produces spikes of electrical activity transmits crucial information. But a single neuron fires irregularly -- and inconsistently, even when a person is performing the same motion repeatedly. (Stock image)
Credit: © adimas / Fotolia
The reason for this frustration, according to a new study by neuroscientists at Duke University, is in how we sense the world. The response of a given neuron varies in its activity even when we see exactly the same scene -- essentially producing a certain kind of brain noise that affects our responding movements. These new findings are published April 6 in the journal Neuron.
"Understanding the noise in the nervous system and how it can work to cause inaccuracies in movement is a critical step in understanding how we move," said the study's senior investigator Stephen Lisberger, chair of neurobiology at Duke University School of Medicine.
These findings may help explain why our signatures don't look the same every time, why our tennis stroke doesn't always hit the ball where we want it, or why we mistype a key on the keyboard, he added.
It's not new that our brains, and the neurons within, are noisy. The exact timing of a neuron as it produces spikes of electrical activity transmits crucial information. But a single neuron fires irregularly -- and inconsistently, even when a person is performing the same motion repeatedly.
In the new study, Lisberger's team analyzed electrical activity of single neurons firing in the brains of monkeys that were tracking a dot moving across a computer screen. A region called "MT" within the visual region of the brain is responsible for guiding these particular eye movements, and for perceiving motion in general. Each neuron responds to the moving dot with a particular delay.
Unexpectedly, the delay of one neuron in response to a particular motion linked up with the delay of another neuron in the MT, the group found. When one neuron fired a little early, so did its neighbor.
"I was extremely surprised by this finding," Lisberger said. "My intuition would have been that it would have been entirely random."
A group of neurons is a bit like a raucous crowd packed into a basketball stadium. When they are uncoordinated, individual cheers are hard to hear. But when everyone's chanting in synchrony, you can pick out the words from the other noise, Lisberger said.
The latter phenomenon, what the research team calls "correlated noise," becomes a meaningful signal. Remarkably, the delay in a single MT neuron predicts the size of the delay in the monkeys' responding eye movements.
"We get that finding because the whole population of neurons is correlated and they are fluctuating together. That's the key internal driver," Lisberger said, adding that this is likely happening all over the brain. Their future work will focus on variations of individual neurons in motor areas of the brain.
Lisberger's team acquired data from the brain during movement and developed new computational tools and simulations. Their efforts have resulted in a freely available computational tool for more precisely predicting when a neuron is responding to a single event. (The code may be downloaded here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jfznf356sbl3gl0/LeeLatencyAnalysis.zip?dl=0)
Historically, it has been a challenge to separate noise from signal while recording from individual neurons. Other studies have recorded from single neurons multiple times and lined up electrical spikes from each trial to determine when the neuron might be responding to a given stimulus, as opposed to firing randomly. But in real life, our perceptions and actions arise from the single responses of many neurons rather than many responses of a single neuron.
"We think further analysis of variation in neural responses is going to allow us to understand how the sensory and motor parts of the brain work together to generate reliable and accurate movements," Lisberger said.
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160310124904.htm
Exercise may slow brain aging by 10 years for older people
March 23, 2016
Science Daily/American Academy of Neurology
Exercise in older people is associated with a slower rate of decline in thinking skills that occurs with aging. People who reported light to no exercise experienced a decline equal to 10 more years of aging as compared to people who reported moderate to intense exercise, according to a population-based observational study.
"The number of people over the age of 65 in the United States is on the rise, meaning the public health burden of thinking and memory problems will likely grow," said study author Clinton B. Wright, MD, MS, of the University of Miami in Miami, Fla., and member of the American Academy of Neurology. "Our study showed that for older people, getting regular exercise may be protective, helping them keep their cognitive abilities longer."
For the study, researchers looked at data on 876 people enrolled in the Northern Manhattan Study who were asked how long and how often they exercised during the two weeks prior to that date. An average of seven years later, each person was given tests of memory and thinking skills and a brain MRI, and five years after that they took the memory and thinking tests again.
Of the group, 90 percent reported light exercise or no exercise. Light exercise could include activities such as walking and yoga. They were placed in the low activity group. The remaining 10 percent reported moderate to high intensity exercise, which could include activities such as running, aerobics, or calisthenics. They were placed in the high activity group.
When looking at people who had no signs of memory and thinking problems at the start of the study, researchers found that those reporting low activity levels showed a greater decline over five years compared to those with high activity levels on tests of how fast they could perform simple tasks and how many words they could remember from a list. The difference was equal to that of 10 years of aging. The difference also remained after researchers adjusted for other factors that could affect brain health, such as smoking, alcohol use, high blood pressure and body mass index.
"Physical activity is an attractive option to reduce the burden of cognitive impairment in public health because it is low cost and doesn't interfere with medications," said Wright. "Our results suggest that moderate to intense exercise may help older people delay aging of the brain, but more research from randomized clinical trials comparing exercise programs to more sedentary activity is needed to confirm these results."
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160323185527.htm
Exercise Reduces Cardiovascular Risk Factors From Constant Stress
April 5, 2016
Science Daily/American Physiological Society (APS)
Constant stress is associated with signs of poor blood vessel health and increased risk of cardiovascular disease. New research presented today at the Experimental Biology 2016 meeting in San Diego finds that aerobic exercise kept the blood vessels of stressed rats working normally. Blood vessels of exercising stressed rats enlarged more when stimulated than the blood vessels of stressed rats who did not exercise -- a sign of better vascular health. Exercise may be an important therapy for promoting cardiovascular health in chronically stressed individuals, the study concludes.
Kent Lemaster, graduate student at West Virginia University, will present "Reversing the Effects of Chronic Stress on the Aorta with Exercise Training" on April 5.
Further information
Individuals with increased levels of chronic stress have an increased aortic stiffness, which is a strong, independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Additionally, chronic stress is associated with a decreased capacity for endotheliumdependent, nitric oxide (NO)induced vasorelaxation, which may contribute to the aortic stiffness and increased afterload on the heart. Using the unpredictable chronic mild stress protocol (UCMS), lean zucker rats (LZR; healthy rats) develop impaired vascular reactivity in aortic rings concomitant to the onset of chronic stress pathologies.
Therapeutic interventions aimed at improving endothelial functioning are therefore considered important avenues for improving CV outcomes in stressed patients. We hypothesized that a chronic aerobic exercise intervention would improve endothelium dependent relaxation to methacholine in isolated aortic rings of stressed LZRs. A total of 22 LZRs underwent eight weeks of a treadmill exercise protocol beginning at nine weeks of age. The animals were separated into four groups: sedentary LZR (LZR; n=7); UCMS LZR (UCMSLZR; n=8); exercise and UCMS (ExUCMSLZR n=7).
Following the intervention, the thoracic aorta was dissected out from each animal and sectioned into rings, some of which were then mounted into an ex vivo wire tension myograph system. The remaining rings were evaluated for NO production in a DAFFM diacetate assay. Force transduction was used to measure the changes in aortic tension in response to pharmacological agonists. The aortic rings were mechanically set to 1 gram of tension, then preconstricted using phenylephrine (1x106µM), followed by a gradual dilation induced by increasing concentrations of methacholine (1x109, 1x108, 1x107, 1x10-6, 1x105 µM respectively).
The LZR group demonstrated greater methacholineinduced maximal vasorelaxation compared to the UCMSLZR group (83% vs. 78%). The ExUCMSLZR group experienced the greatest maximal dilation (90%) as well as increased values of NO production measured in the DAF assay compared to LZR group and UCMSLZR group. These results demonstrate that eight weeks of aerobic exercise enhances endothelial bioavailability and/or production of NO, which improves endothelium-dependent vasorelaxation in the aortas of stressed LZRs even more so than the sedentary control.
Exercise training may therefore be an important therapy for promoting greater arterial compliance of chronically stressed individuals.
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160405175645.htm
Perk yourself up with some exercise
April 8, 2016
Science Daily/Taylor & Francis
We’re all aware of the physical advantages of exercising and the emotional advantages have also been well-documented. But how much do we know about the psychological impact of engaging in physical activity? This study demonstrates the positive impact of acute aerobic exercise on individuals experiencing emotion regulation difficulties.
Emily E. Bernstein & Richard J. McNally tested how a short period of moderate exercise changed the emotional effects of subsequent exposure to an upsetting film clip. They hypothesised that although the stressor would evoke negative feelings in all participants, some would recover quicker than others, despite partaking in any form of exercise. They also suggested that if an individual who struggled to emotionally regulate engaged in physical activity, they should recover faster than their counterpart who had not exercised.
The study was conducted on 80 participants (40 men and 40 women) and each was assigned to either an aerobic exercise or no exercise (stretching). They were asked to complete an online survey to establish their emotional mood and then immediately instructed to either jog for 30 minutes, or stretch for 30 minutes. They were subsequently asked to watch a sad scene from the film The Champ. The participants then completed a range of questionnaires and measures to determine their emotion regulation. Finally, all participants were instructed to watch a brief clip from When Harry Met Sally, which is known to be amusing.
As expected, participants who stated that there was nothing they could do to make themselves feel better reported that they felt greater feelings of sadness during the study. One significant revelation was that participants who had completed 30 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise reported feeling less sadness by the end of the study, in comparison to individuals who had not exercised.
Bernstein and McNally concluded that, "Participants who exercised were better able to overcome or compensate for initial difficulties drawing on regulatory strategies and with goal-directed cognition and behavior" in comparison to non-exercisers.
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160408112334.htm
Videogame addiction linked to ADHD
April 25, 2016
Science Daily/University of Bergen
Young and single men are at risk of being addicted to video games. The addiction indicates an escape from ADHD and psychiatric disorder, suggests a new study.
"Video game addiction is more prevalent among younger men, and among those not being in a current relationship, than others," says, Cecilie Schou Andreassen, doctor of psychology and clinical psychologist specialist at Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen (UiB).
Schou Andreassen has carried out a study with more than 20 000 participants who answered questions related to videogame addiction. The study is published in the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, of the American Psychological Association.
Escape from psychiatric disorders
The study showed that video game addiction appears to be associated with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and depression.
"Excessively engaging in gaming may function as an escape mechanism for, or coping with, underlying psychiatric disorders in attempt to alleviate unpleasant feelings, and to calm restless bodies," Doctor Andreassen says.
According to Doctor Andreassen, the large study shows some clear tendencies as to which people develop addictive use of social media.
"The study implies that younger with some of these characteristics could be targeted regarding preventing development of an unhealthy gaming pattern."
Sex difference in addiction
The study also showed that addiction related to videogames and computer activities shows sex differences.
"Men seem generally more likely to become addicted to online gaming, gambling, and cyber-pornography, while women to social media, texting, and online shopping," Schou Andreassen says.
Seven Warning Signs
The study uses seven criteria to identify video game addiction (developed by Lemmens et al., 2009), where gaming experiences last six months are scored on a scale from "never" to "very often":
*You think about playing a game all day long
*You spend increasing amounts of time on games
*You play games to forget about real life
*Others have unsuccessfully tried to reduce your game use
*You feel bad when you are unable to play
*You have fights with others (e.g., family, friends) over your time spent on games
*You neglect other important activities (e.g., school, work, sports) to play games
Scoring high on at least four of the seven items may suggest that you are addicted to video gaming associated with impaired health, work, school and/or social relations.
"However, most people have a relaxed relationship to video games and fairly good control," Doctor Cecilie Schou Andreassen highlights.
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160425095529.htm
Music improves baby brain responses to music and speech
April 25, 2016
Science Daily/University of Washington
New research shows that play sessions with music improved babies' brain processing of both music and new speech sounds.
A new study by scientists at the University of Washington's Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS) shows that a series of play sessions with music improved 9-month-old babies' brain processing of both music and new speech sounds.
"Our study is the first in young babies to suggest that experiencing a rhythmic pattern in music can also improve the ability to detect and make predictions about rhythmic patterns in speech," said lead author Christina Zhao, a postdoctoral researcher at I-LABS.
"This means that early, engaging musical experiences can have a more global effect on cognitive skills," Zhao said.
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published the study this week.
"Infants experience a complex world in which sounds, lights and sensations vary constantly," said co-author Patricia Kuhl, co-director of I-LABS. "The baby's job is to recognize the patterns of activity and predict what's going to happen next. Pattern perception is an important cognitive skill, and improving that ability early may have long-lasting effects on learning."
Like music, language has strong rhythmic patterns. The timing of syllables helps listeners define one speech sound from another and understand what someone is saying. And it's the ability to identify differences in speech sounds that helps babies to learn to speak.
The I-LABS researchers designed a randomized-controlled experiment to see if teaching babies a musical rhythm would help the babies with speech rhythms.
Over the course of a month, 39 babies attended 12 15-minute play sessions in the lab with their parents. In groups of about two or three, the babies sat with their parents, who guided them through the activities.
In the 20 babies assigned to the music group, recordings of children's music played while an experimenter led the babies and their parents through tapping out the beats in time with the music.
All the songs were in triple meter -- like in a waltz -- which the researchers chose for being relatively difficult for babies to learn.
Watch a short video demo of what a music session looked like: https://youtu.be/whzxMNvHBD4
The 19 babies in the control group attended play sessions that did not involve music. Instead, they played with toy cars, blocks and other objects that required coordinated movements without music.
"In both the music and control groups, we gave babies experiences that were social, required their active involvement and included body movements -- these are all characteristics that we know help people learn," Zhao said. "The key difference between the play groups was whether the babies were moving to learn a musical rhythm."
Within a week after the play sessions ended, the families came back to the lab so the babies' brain responses could be measured. The researchers used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to see the precise location and timing of brain activity.
While sitting in the brain scanner, the babies listened to a series of music and speech sounds, each played out in a rhythm that was occasionally disrupted. The babies' brains would show a particular response to indicate they could detect the disruption.
The researchers focused their analyses on two brain regions, the auditory cortex and the prefrontal cortex, which is important for cognitive skills such as controlling attention and detecting patterns.
Babies in the music group had stronger brain responses to the disruption in both music and speech rhythm in both the auditory and the prefrontal cortex, compared with babies in the control group.
This suggests that participation in the play sessions with music improved the infants' ability to detect patterns in sounds.
"Schools across our nation are decreasing music experiences for our children, saying they are too expensive," Kuhl said. "This research reminds us that the effects of engaging in music go beyond music itself. Music experience has the potential to boost broader cognitive skills that enhance children's abilities to detect, expect and react quickly to patterns in the world, which is highly relevant in today's complex world."
:https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160425161148.htm
Nurturing during preschool years boosts child's brain growth
Mothers' support linked to robust growth of brain area involved in learning, memory, stress response
April 25, 2016
Science Daily/Washington University School of Medicine
Children whose mothers were nurturing during the preschool years, as opposed to later in childhood, have more robust growth in brain structures associated with learning, memory and stress response than children with less supportive moms.
https://images.sciencedaily.com/2016/04/160425192812_1_540x360.jpg
New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates children with supportive mothers during preschool experience a more significant increase in the volume of the hippocampus during the period from school age to adolescence. In contrast, kids whose mothers were less supportive during the preschool years had a less steep growth trajectory, even if their mothers became more supportive later. The researchers measured support and nurturing by monitoring and scoring videotaped interactions between mothers and their children.
Credit: Washington University School of Medicine
"This study suggests there's a sensitive period when the brain responds more to maternal support," said first author Joan L. Luby, MD, a Washington University child psychiatrist at St. Louis Children's Hospital.
The study is published online April 25 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition.
The researchers studied a series of brain scans of children from preschool through early adolescence, finding a sharper rise in the volume of the hippocampus in the kids whose mothers supported and nurtured them during the preschool years. That region of the brain is critical to learning, memory and regulating emotions. In contrast, the hippocampus appeared smaller in adolescents whose mothers were less supportive during the preschool period, even if their mothers became more supportive in elementary or middle school.
The new research builds on previous findings by the same investigators that showed a link between maternal nurturing and a larger hippocampus observed in brain scans conducted at the time the children reached school age. In the new study, the researchers were able to observe steady growth in the hippocampus of children with supportive mothers across multiple brain scans taken at different time periods, with 127 children receiving three MRI scans each from the time they first started school through early adolescence.
"The parent-child relationship during the preschool period is vital, even more important than when the child gets older," Luby said. "We think that's due to greater plasticity in the brain when kids are younger, meaning that the brain is affected more by experiences very early in life. That suggests it's vital that kids receive support and nurturing during those early years."
The researchers also found that the growth trajectory in the hippocampus was associated with healthier emotional functioning when the children entered their teen years. When parental nurturing didn't begin until later in childhood, such support didn't provide the same benefits in brain growth, the researchers noted.
"This finding highlights the critical importance of caregiving in sculpting aspects of brain development that are important to how children function as they mature," said co-author Deanna M. Barch, PhD, a Washington University Psychologist and chair of the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences.
The researchers measured nurturing in mothers by closely observing and scoring videotaped interactions between mothers and their children. The investigators observed mothers and children under moderately stressful conditions, explained Luby, the Samuel and Mae S. Ludwig Professor of Child Psychiatry and director of Washington University's Early Emotional Development Program.
"The mother is asked to complete a task while we give the child an attractive gift to open, but we don't allow it to be opened right away," she said. "It's a stressful condition like those that happen multiple times each day in any given family, like when you're cooking dinner and a child wants attention. The child needs something, but you have something else to do, so it challenges your parenting skills."
Parents who are able to maintain their composure and complete assigned tasks while still offering emotional support to their children are rated as more nurturing and supportive. Parents who dismiss their children, or behave in punitive ways during the test, receive lower marks for support.
Small changes in support indicated big differences in outcomes, Luby said. In examining the brain scans, the researchers found that children whose mothers were more supportive than average had increases in growth of the hippocampus that were more than two times greater than in those whose mothers were slightly below average on the nurturing scale.
Luby believes the findings suggest it may be possible to help children do better in school, cope better in life and develop emotionally by helping parents learn to provide more support and nurturing early in the lives of their children.
"Early maternal support affects the child's brain development," she said. "We also know that providing support to parents can have a positive impact on other behavioral and adaptive outcomes in children. So we have a very logical reason to encourage policies that help parents become more supportive."
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160425192812.htm
Breast milk linked to significant early brain growth in preemies
Preemies fed mostly breast milk had larger brains by their due dates than those who consumed small amounts or none
April 30, 2016
Science Daily/Washington University School of Medicine
Feeding premature babies mostly breast milk during the first month of life appears to spur more robust brain growth. Those preemies whose daily diets were at least 50 percent breast milk had more brain tissue and cortical-surface area by their due dates than premature babies who consumed significantly less breast milk.
Studying preterm infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at St. Louis Children's Hospital, the researchers found that preemies whose daily diets were at least 50 percent breast milk had more brain tissue and cortical-surface area by their due dates than premature babies who consumed significantly less breast milk.
The researchers present their findings May 3 at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies, in Baltimore.
"The brains of babies born before their due dates usually are not fully developed," said senior investigator Cynthia Rogers, MD, an assistant professor of child psychiatry who treats patients at St. Louis Children's Hospital. "But breast milk has been shown to be helpful in other areas of development, so we looked to see what effect it might have on the brain. With MRI scans, we found that babies fed more breast milk had larger brain volumes. This is important because several other studies have shown a correlation between brain volume and cognitive development."
The study included 77 preterm infants. The researchers retrospectively looked to see how much breast milk those babies had received while being cared for in the NICU. Then, the researchers conducted brain scans on those infants at about the time each would have been born had the babies not arrived early. All of the babies were born at least 10 weeks early, with an average gestation of 26 weeks, or about 14 weeks premature. Because they are still developing, preemies typically have smaller brains than full-term infants.
First author Erin Reynolds, a research technician in Rogers' laboratory, said in gauging the effects of breast milk on the babies' brains, the researchers didn't distinguish between milk that came from the babies' own mothers and breast milk donated by other women. Rather, they focused on the influence of breast milk in general.
"As the amount of breast milk increased, so did a baby's chances of having a larger cortical surface area," Reynolds said. "The cortex is the part of the brain associated with cognition, so we assume that more cortex will help improve cognition as the babies grow and develop."
Preterm birth is a leading cause of neurologic problems in children and has been linked to psychiatric disorders later in childhood. Rogers and her team plan to follow the babies in the study through their first several years of life to see how they grow, focusing on their motor, cognitive and social development. As the babies get older, the researchers believe they will be able to determine the effects of early exposure to breast milk on later developmental outcomes.
"We want to see whether this difference in brain size has an effect on any of those developmental milestones," Rogers said. "Neonatologists already believe breast milk is the best nutrition for preterm infants. We wanted to see whether it was possible to detect the impact of breast milk on the brain this early in life and whether the benefits appeared quickly or developed over time."
Rogers said further investigation is needed to determine specifically how breast milk affects the brain and what is present in the milk that seems to promote brain development. She explained that because all of the babies in the study were born early it isn't clear whether breast milk would provide similar benefits for babies born at full term.
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160430100552.htm
Children react physically to stress from their social networks
A 28-year study reveals that the social relationships nurtured in childhood may have physiological consequences
May 2, 2016
Science Daily/University of Missouri-Columbia
Research has shown the significance of social relationships in influencing adult human behavior and health; however, little is known about how children's perception of their social networks correlates with stress and how it may influence development. Now, a research team has determined that children and adolescents physically react to their social networks and the stress those networks may cause.
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Mark Flinn, seen here on one of his many trips to Dominica, determined that children and adolescents physically react to their social networks and the stress those networks may cause.
Credit: Mark V. Flinn
Cortisol and salivary alpha-amylase are secreted in response to outside pressure or tension. A part of the autonomic nervous system, release of cortisol in the system is quick, unconscious and can be measured in saliva; therefore, measuring cortisol is a good indicator of stress in the body, said Mark V. Flinn, professor of biomedical anthropology and chair of the Department of Anthropology in the MU College of Arts and Science.
"The typical physiological response to stress is the release of hormones like cortisol into the system," Flinn said. "In this study, we wanted to explore the association between children's personal social networks, as well as perceived social network size and density with biomarkers like cortisol and alpha-amylase that can indicate levels of stress in youth. Our goal was to determine if children experience stress because they perceive their networks to be inferior compared to their peers. Determining if social relationships cause stress in children is important because stress can influence human behavior and health later in life."
Flinn and his team, including Davide Ponzi, a post-doctoral fellow who is now with the University of Utah, have been conducting a one-of-a-kind project on an island in the Caribbean. For the study, the team has been using data collected over more than two decades from a small village on the east coast of Dominica. For years, Flinn has integrated himself within the culture, documenting socioeconomic, demographic, and health data as well as relationship data within a small community of about 500 residents.
"Over the years, we've collected data on grandparents, parents and their children; I've observed real kids in their communities, not in a controlled laboratory setting, so the data is unique and highly useful," Flinn said. "Using this wealth of knowledge, we were interested in learning how the kids physically responded to the social networks they cultivate."
For this focused study, Ponzi and Flinn chose a sample of 40 children ranging in ages from 5 to 12 and who represented about 80 percent of the total children in the village. Each child was asked a series of questions about their friends to measure their perceived density and closeness of their social networks. Three samples of saliva were collected before, during and after the interview and cortisol and alpha-amylase levels were measured.
"We found that, using the data we collected from the one-on-one interviews, children who were stressed about the size and density of their perceived social networks had elevated anticipatory cortisol levels, and responded by secreting more alpha-amylase," Flinn said. "Our study was in line with past research on stress, loneliness and social support in adults, but we strengthened past research by applying it to children. Future research should consider a multi-system approach like this one to study cognitive and biological mechanisms underlying children's perception."
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160502215713.htm
Children with ADHD sleep both poorly and less
May 4, 2016
Science Daily/Aarhus University
There is some truth to the claim by parents of children with ADHD that their children have more difficulty falling asleep and that they sleep more poorly than other children, new research indicates.
Studies have shown that up to seventy per cent of parents of children with ADHD report that the children have difficulty falling asleep and that they spend a long time putting them to bed. However, scientific studies that measure sleep quality using electrodes have so far failed to demonstrate a correlation between sleep quality and ADHD. But a new Danish study now shows that children with ADHD actually do sleep worse than other children:
"Our study will confirm what many parents have experienced, which is that children with ADHD take longer to fall asleep at night. With our measurements we can also see that these children experience more disturbed sleep including less deep sleep. If you only look at length of sleep, children in the ADHD group sleep for 45 minutes less than children in the control group," says PhD from Aarhus University and medical doctor at the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Hospital, Risskov, Anne Virring Sørensen, who is behind the PhD study.
Two out of three children with ADHD have one or more additional psychiatric diagnoses in addition to ADHD, which probably increases the risk of sleep disturbance. But even when the researchers look at the children who have only been diagnosed with ADHD, they see a big difference in the sleep patterns of the control group and the ADHD group.
Opposite sleep patterns during the day
The researchers also studied sleep patterns during the day. The findings surprised the researchers.
"Unlike in the evening we could see that there was a tendency for the children with ADHD to fall asleep faster during the day than the children in the control group. This is somewhat surprising when you take into account that ADHD is associated with characteristics such as hyperactivity. But this hyperactivity could be compensatory behaviour for not being able to doze off during the day" says Anne Virring Sørensen.
The fact that researchers have not previously been able to demonstrate a correlation between ADHD and poorer sleep could be due to different measuring methods.
"In our study the children had electrodes attached to their heads for what is known as a polysomnography at the hospital in the afternoon, but they slept in their familiar home surroundings. In previous studies children have been admitted to specialist sleep centres at hospital to measure sleep via a polysomnographic study," says Anne Virring Sørensen.
Many children with ADHD are currently given medicine to help them fall asleep. Anne Virring Sørensen emphasises that none of the children received medicine while taking part in the study.
Important study
She believes that the study is important in both the short and long term:
"I think many parents and clinicians are very pleased to receive confirmation that poor sleep patterns can now be demonstrated and that there is probably a correlation with the ADHD diagnosis. The next step is, of course, to find out where this correlation lies so we can develop better treatments in the long term. Our survey is an important foundation for further studies," she says.
The study was recently published in the Journal of Sleep Research.
Facts about the study
· A total of 76 children with ADHD and an average age of 9.6 years participated in the study.
· The control group consisted of 25 healthy children.
· Two different types of study were carried out:
· Outpatient sleep examinations with electrodes during the night (polysomnography).
· Multiple sleep latency tests which measured how quickly the children fell asleep (four times twenty minutes on the same day).
· The study is the largest so far to include both research methods and to include both children with and without an ADHD diagnosis.
· The study was carried out by researchers from Aarhus University, Aarhus University Hospital Risskov, Rigshospitalet and the University of Copenhagen.
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160504121641.htm
Where you are is who you are: How enclosed and open spaces affect cognition
Good built environments are fundamental for our well-being
May 9, 2016
Science Daily/Frontiers
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New research raises the question whether raising children in enclosed spaces versus open spaces will result in differences in spatial and social cognition.
Credit: © Wollwerth Imagery / Fotolia
A recent study suggests that who we are might be more integrated with where we are than previously thought. Demonstrating how architects and urban planners might take guidance from disciplines like neuroscience, philosophy and psychology, a paper published in Frontiers in Psychology, reveals that a good built environment might promote well-being and effect our decisions.
Contrary to the idea that we are separate from what we experience, the study claims that we ought to think about how the environment we create might, in turn, be used to create us. With this in mind, the scientists investigated how the way we interact with space defines how we identify ourselves and our capabilities.
"The built environment can restrict or promote spatial cognition, which can influence one's self-hood," the researchers explain. "Our spatial coordinates and our 'selves' are intertwined."
According to the researchers, we understand our environment differently depending on our experience of it. For example, learning your way through a space using a map gives a different understanding than through learning your own route. In a mapped environment, the tendency is to think of objects in relation to one another, whereas finding your own way might lead to thinking about the space in terms of its relation to you.
"The greater familiarity one has with a place increases the knowledge one has of different perspectives and orientations," they said. Similarly, the amount of time we are in our environments can change our understanding. This also suggests that having unrestricted movement in the space can over time allow us to experience multiple paths and perspectives.
The researchers say social perspectives also change spatial perspectives. An example of this is language. "Our language reveals how social relationships are mapped onto spatial ones -- for example a close friend versus a distant relation. This reveals that spatial reference frames are the fundamental way that the locations of objects, people and oneself are understood," they explain.
Envisioning a more inclusive future, the scientists explain that well-built environments are important for well-being. A relationship to the space we're in is a fundamental human experience and so it is evident that built environments need to address everyone's needs.
"Recently, architects and urban planners have started to consider the abilities and reference frames of those using the space to optimize the design of the built environment," they said.
But it goes beyond creating a building space. The fact that experience can shape individual differences, which in turn can affect the quality of spatial and social cognition a person, suggests that growing up in certain built environments can have detrimental or beneficial effects on their cognitive ability. This brings up questions such as whether raising children in enclosed spaces versus open spaces will result in differences in spatial and social cognition.
More research also needs to be performed on how spaces might affect decision making in town halls and parliaments, and the extent to which these spaces, in interaction with individual differences, can help foster more effective policy making. "Where we are, might mould who we are, but given our ability to shape the environment, we can play an active role in the development of the self," they said.
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160509105546.htm
ADHD may emerge after childhood for some people
May 18, 2016
Science Daily/King's College London
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New research findings have important implications for our understanding of ADHD, as ADHD that onsets in adulthood could have different causes to childhood ADHD.
Credit: © ibreakstock / Fotolia
While it is well established that childhood ADHD may continue into adulthood, new research by King's College London suggests that for some people the disorder does not emerge until after childhood.
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a developmental disorder marked by inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity and is one of the most common behavioural disorders in children. It is widely believed that adult ADHD is the continuation of the disorder from childhood.
However, researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King's found that nearly 70 per cent of the young adults with ADHD in their study did not meet criteria for the disorder at any of the childhood assessments. Adults with this 'late-onset' ADHD had high levels of symptoms, impairment and other mental health disorders.
Published in JAMA Psychiatry, these findings have important implications for our understanding of ADHD, as ADHD that onsets in adulthood could have different causes to childhood ADHD.
Findings from this UK cohort are confirmed by evidence for adult-onset ADHD world-wide: a study from Brazil will be published by JAMA Psychiatry alongside this research, which also identified a large proportion of adults with ADHD as not having the disorder in childhood. Both the UK and Brazilian studies support previous findings from a New Zealand cohort.
The research sample in the King's College London study included more than 2,200 British twins from the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study. Symptoms of childhood ADHD were measured at the ages of 5, 7, 10 and 12 through mother and teacher reports. Young adults were interviewed at the age of 18 to assess ADHD symptoms and any associated impairments, as well as the existence of other mental health disorders.
As the study was a cohort of twins, the researchers were also able to examine the genetic basis of ADHD. They found that adult ADHD was less heritable than childhood ADHD, and that having a twin with childhood ADHD did not place individuals at a higher risk of developing late-onset ADHD.
Dr Jessica Agnew-Blais from the IoPPN at King's College London said: 'We were very interested by this large 'late-onset' ADHD group, as ADHD is generally seen as a childhood-onset neurodevelopmental disorder. We speculated about the nature of late-onset ADHD: the disorder could have been masked in childhood due to protective factors, such as a supportive family environment. Or it could be entirely explained by other mental health problems. Alternatively, late-onset ADHD could be a distinct disorder altogether. We think it is important that we continue to investigate the underlying causes of late-onset ADHD.
'Although ADHD occurs in approximately 4 per cent of adults, relatively few adults receive a diagnosis or treatment for the disorder. It is crucial that we take a developmental approach to understanding ADHD, and that the absence of a childhood diagnosis should not prevent adults with ADHD from receiving clinical attention.'
Professor Louise Arseneault, also from the IoPPN at King's College London, said: 'Our research sheds new light on the development and onset of ADHD, but it also brings up many questions about ADHD that arises after childhood. How similar or different is 'late-onset' ADHD compared with ADHD that begins in childhood? How and why does late-onset ADHD arise? What treatments are most effective for late-onset ADHD? These are the questions we should now be seeking to answer.'
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160518120107.htm
Many with migraines have vitamin deficiencies
Researchers uncertain whether supplementation would help prevent migraines
June 10, 2016
Science Daily/Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
A high percentage of children, teens and young adults with migraines appear to have mild deficiencies in vitamin D, riboflavin and coenzyme Q10 -- a vitamin-like substance found in every cell of the body that is used to produce energy for cell growth and maintenance.
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A high percentage of children, teens and young adults with migraines appear to have mild deficiencies in vitamin D, riboflavin and coenzyme Q10, say researchers.
Credit: © Adiano / Fotolia
These deficiencies may be involved in patients who experience migraines, but that is unclear based on existing studies.
"Further studies are needed to elucidate whether vitamin supplementation is effective in migraine patients in general, and whether patients with mild deficiency are more likely to benefit from supplementation," says Suzanne Hagler, MD, a Headache Medicine fellow in the division of Neurology at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and lead author of the study.
Dr. Hagler and colleagues at Cincinnati Children's conducted the study among patients at the Cincinnati Children's Headache Center. She will present her findings at 9:55 am Pacific time June 10, 2016 at the 58th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Headache Society in San Diego.
Dr. Hagler's study drew from a database that included patients with migraines who, according to Headache Center practice, had baseline blood levels checked for vitamin D, riboflavin, coenzyme Q10 and folate, all of which were implicated in migraines, to some degree, by previous and sometimes conflicting studies. Many were put on preventive migraine medications and received vitamin supplementation, if levels were low. Because few received vitamins alone, the researchers were unable to determine vitamin effectiveness in preventing migraines.
She found that girls and young woman were more likely than boys and young men to have coenzyme Q10 deficiencies at baseline. Boys and young men were more likely to have vitamin D deficiency. It was unclear whether there were folate deficiencies. Patients with chronic migraines were more likely to have coenzyme Q10 and riboflavin deficiencies than those with episodic migraines.
Previous studies have indicated that certain vitamins and vitamin deficiencies may be important in the migraine process. Studies using vitamins to prevent migraines, however, have had conflicting success.
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160610140645.htm
Recharge with sleep: Pediatric sleep recommendations promoting optimal health
June 13, 2016
Science Daily/American Academy of Sleep Medicine
For the first time, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine has released official consensus recommendations for the amount of sleep needed to promote optimal health in children and teenagers to avoid the health risks of insufficient sleep.
The recommendations in the consensus statement are as follows:
• Infants four to 12 months should sleep 12 to 16 hours per 24 hours (including naps) on a regular basis to promote optimal health.
• Children one to two years of age should sleep 11 to 14 hours per 24 hours (including naps) on a regular basis to promote optimal health.
• Children three to five years of age should sleep 10 to 13 hours per 24 hours (including naps) on a regular basis to promote optimal health.
• Children six to 12 years of age should sleep nine to 12 hours per 24 hours on a regular basis to promote optimal health.
• Teenagers 13 to 18 years of age should sleep eight to 10 hours per 24 hours on a regular basis to promote optimal health.
The AASM consensus statement is published in the June issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine and will be discussed this week during SLEEP 2016, the 30th Anniversary Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC (APSS) in Denver.
"Sleep is essential for a healthy life, and it is important to promote healthy sleep habits in early childhood," said Dr. Shalini Paruthi, Pediatric Consensus Panel moderator and fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. "It is especially important as children reach adolescence to continue to ensure that teens are able to get sufficient sleep."
The recommendations follow a 10-month project conducted by a Pediatric Consensus Panel of 13 of the nation's foremost sleep experts, and are endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Sleep Research Society and the American Association of Sleep Technologists. The expert panel reviewed 864 published scientific articles addressing the relationship between sleep duration and health in children, evaluated the evidence using a formal grading system, and arrived at the final recommendations after multiple rounds of voting.
The Pediatric Consensus Panel found that sleeping the number of recommended hours on a regular basis is associated with overall better health outcomes including: improved attention, behavior, learning, memory, emotional regulation, quality of life, and mental and physical health.
The panel found that sleeping fewer than the recommended hours is associated with attention, behavior and learning problems. Insufficient sleep also increases the risk of accidents, injuries, hypertension, obesity, diabetes and depression. The panel also found that insufficient sleep in teenagers is associated with increased risk of self-harm, suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts.
"More than a third of the U.S. population is not getting enough sleep, and for children who are in the critical years of early development, sleep is even more crucial," said Dr. Nathaniel Watson, 2015 -- 2016 president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. "Making sure there is ample time for sleep is one of the best ways to promote a healthy lifestyle for a child."
Additionally, the panel found that regularly sleeping more than the recommended hours may be associated with adverse health outcomes such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity and mental health problems.
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160613122419.htm
Consistent links between capacity to delay gratification, ADHD, obesity
June 14, 2016
Science Daily/McMaster University
Individuals diagnosed with ADHD or obesity are more likely to choose smaller immediate rewards over larger future rewards. These new studies found a highly consistent reduction in capacity to delay gratification. Immediate reward orientation is robustly elevated in both ADHD and obesity.
This reduced capacity to delay gratification in many individuals diagnosed with ADHD or obesity may lead to new approaches for the clinical treatment of these conditions.
The studies, led by Drs. James MacKillop and Michael Amlung of the Peter Boris Centre for Addictions Research at McMaster University and St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton, have been published in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging and Psychological Medicine.
The findings from these new studies parallel a 2011 study conducted by the authors that found that the ability to delay gratification was reduced in individuals diagnosed with addictive disorders.
"In the context of addictions, there is an increasing appreciation that we need to improve treatment that we provide for patients who substantially devalue future rewards," said MacKillop. "These studies suggest that a simple assessment that measures this phenomenon may also help clinicians to better understand some of their patients that have been diagnosed with ADHD and obesity."
The studies were meta-analyses, or studies that combine the findings across many previous investigations to detect consistent or inconsistent patterns of findings. In the case of the ADHD study, the meta-analysis combined the findings from 21 previous studies including almost 4,000 participants. In the case of the obesity study, the meta-analysis combined the findings from almost 39 studies including over 10,000 participants.
Although the results of prior research appeared to be mixed, these new studies found a highly consistent reduction in capacity to delay gratification in relation to both clinical conditions.
"While not all individuals diagnosed with ADHD and obesity display this pattern of reduced capacity to delay gratification, the connection between this phenomenon and addictions as well as these clinical conditions is clear," said Amlung.
"In the context of obesity specifically, these findings may help inform clinical approaches to weight management that increase individuals' focus toward the longer-term rewards of weight loss."
A second important finding in both studies was that, although the methods varied considerably across the previous studies, reanalyzing the data based on different methods did not appreciably alter the overall findings.
"These studies suggest that, despite different experimental tasks, ages and study designs, immediate reward orientation is robustly elevated in both ADHD and obesity," said Dr. MacKillop.
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160614214415.htm
‘Map’ of teenage brain provides strong evidence of link between serious antisocial behavior and brain development
June 15, 2016
Science Daily/University of Cambridge
The brains of teenagers with serious antisocial behavior problems differ significantly in structure to those of their peers, providing the clearest evidence to date that their behavior stems from changes in brain development in early life, according to new research.
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These two regions of the brain (orbitofrontal cortex and medial temporal cortex) were more similar in terms of thickness in youths with Conduct Disorder than in typically-developing youths. This suggests that the normal pattern of brain development is disrupted in youths with Conduct Disorder.
Credit: Nicola Toschi
In a study published today in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, researchers used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methods to look at the brain structure of male adolescents and young adults who had been diagnosed with conduct disorder -- persistent behavioural problems including aggressive and destructive behaviour, lying and stealing, and for older children, weapon use or staying out all night.
In particular, the researchers looked at the coordinated development of different brain regions by studying whether they were similar or different in terms of thickness. Regions that develop at similar rates would be expected to show similar patterns of cortical thickness, for example.
"There's evidence already of differences in the brains of individuals with serious behavioural problems, but this is often simplistic and only focused on regions such as the amygdala, which we know is important for emotional behaviour," explains Dr Luca Passamonti from the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Cambridge. "But conduct disorder is a complex behavioural disorder, so likewise we would expect the changes to be more complex in nature and to potentially involve other brain regions."
In a study funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council, researchers at the University of Cambridge recruited 58 male adolescents and young adults with conduct disorder and 25 typically-developing controls, all aged between 16 and 21 years. The researchers divided the individuals with conduct disorder according to whether they displayed childhood-onset conduct disorder or adolescent-onset conduct disorder.
The team found that youths with childhood-onset conduct disorder (sometimes termed 'early-starters') showed a strikingly higher number of significant correlations in thickness between regions relative to the controls. They believe this may reflect disruptions in the normal pattern of brain development in childhood or adolescence.
On the other hand, youths with adolescent-onset conduct disorder ('late starters') displayed fewer such correlations than the healthy individuals. The researchers believe this may reflect specific disruptions in the development of the brain during adolescence, for example to the 'pruning' of nerve cells or the connections (synapses) between them.
As the findings were particularly striking, the researchers sought to replicate their findings in an independent sample of 37 individuals with conduct disorder and 32 healthy controls, all male and aged 13-18 years, recruited at the University of Southampton; they were able to confirm their findings, adding to the robustness of the study.
"The differences that we see between healthy teenagers and those with both forms of conduct disorders show that most of the brain is involved, but particularly the frontal and temporal regions of the brain," says Dr Graeme Fairchild, who is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Southampton. "This provides extremely compelling evidence that conduct disorder is a real psychiatric disorder and not, as some experts maintain, just an exaggerated form of teenage rebellion.
"These findings also show that there are important differences in the brain between those who develop problems early in childhood compared with those who only show behavioural problems in their teenage years. More research is now needed to investigate how to use these results to help these young people clinically and to examine the factors leading to this abnormal pattern of brain development, such as exposure to early adversity."
"There's never been any doubt that conditions such as Alzheimer's disease are diseases of the brain because imaging allows us to see clearly how it eats away at the brain," adds Professor Nicola Toschi from the University "Tor Vergata" of Rome, "but until now we haven't been able to see the clear -- and widespread -- structural differences in the brains of youths with conduct disorder."
Although the findings point to the importance of the brain in explaining the development of conduct disorder, it is not clear how the structural differences arise and whether, for example, it is a mixture of an individual's genetic make-up and the environment in which they are raised that causes the changes. However, the researchers say their findings may make it possible to monitor objectively the effectiveness of interventions.
"Now that we have a way of imaging the whole brain and providing a 'map' of conduct disorder, we may in future be able to see whether the changes we have observed in this study are reversible if early interventions or psychological therapies are provided," says Professor Ian Goodyer from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge.
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160615203122.htm
Researchers link childhood hunger, violence later in life
June 20, 2016
Science Daily/niversity of Texas at Dallas
Children who often go hungry have a greater risk of developing impulse control problems and engaging in violence, according to new research.
The study, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, found that people who experienced frequent hunger as kids were more than twice as likely to exhibit impulsivity and injure others intentionally as adolescents and adults.
Thirty-seven percent of the study's participants who had frequent hunger as children reported that they had been involved in interpersonal violence. Of those who experienced little to no childhood hunger, 15 percent said they were involved in interpersonal violence. The findings were strongest among whites, Hispanics and males.
Previous research has shown that childhood hunger contributes to a variety of other negative outcomes, including poor academic performance. The study is among the first to find a correlation between childhood hunger, low self-control and interpersonal violence.
"Good nutrition is not only critical for academic success, but now we're showing that it links to behavioral patterns. When kids start to fail in school, they start to fail in other domains of life," said Dr. Alex Piquero, Ashbel Smith Professor of Criminology and associate dean for graduate programs in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences.
Researchers used data from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions to examine the relationship between childhood hunger, impulsivity and interpersonal violence. Participants in that study responded to a variety of questions including how often they went hungry as a child, whether they have problems controlling their temper, and if they had physically injured another person on purpose.
More than 15 million U.S. children face food insecurity -- not having regular access to adequate nutrition, according to the study. Piquero said the results highlight the importance of addressing communities known as food deserts that have little access to grocery stores with healthy food choices.
The findings suggest that strategies aimed at alleviating hunger may also help reduce violence, Piquero said.
"At the very least, we need to get children the nutritional food they need," Piquero said. "It's not a very difficult problem to address, and we can envision lots of gains."
Piquero also has co-authored other recent studies related to the role that self-control plays in delinquency and violence.
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160620161140.htm