Forget me not: Novel target shows promise in treating Alzheimer's and related dementias
June 10, 2021
Science Daily/Medical University of South Carolina
Researchers remain perplexed as to what causes dementia and how to treat and reverse the cognitive decline seen in patients. In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), Harvard Medical School discovered that cis P-tau, a toxic, non-degradable version of a healthy brain protein, is an early marker of vascular dementia (VaD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Their results, published on June 2 in Science Translational Medicine, define the molecular mechanism that causes an accumulation of this toxic protein. Furthermore, they showed that a monoclonal antibody (mAb) that targets this toxic protein was able to prevent disease pathology and memory loss in AD- and VaD-like preclinical models. Additionally, this treatment was even capable of reversing cognitive impairment in an AD-like preclinical model.
"We believe our findings have not only discovered cis P-tau as a previously unrecognized major early driver of VaD and AD but also identified a highly effective and specific immunotherapy to target this common disease driver for treating and preventing AD and VaD at early stages," said Onder Albayram, Ph.D., co-lead author and assistant professor in the Division of Cardiology in the Department of Medicine at MUSC.
Aging is a normal part of life -- we experience weakening of our bones and muscles, stiffening of our blood vessels and some memory lapses. But for around 50 million people worldwide, these memory lapses become progressively more severe, ultimately leading to a diagnosis of dementia.
Dementia is an umbrella term that covers AD, which accounts for 60% to 80% of cases; VaD, the second most common cause; and other less common pathologies. Currently, there are no effective treatments for AD. Interestingly, most AD cases have a vascular component, suggesting a broader relationship between cognitive function and healthy brain vasculature. A better understanding of that relationship could provide a platform to discover novel therapeutic targets.
"Our work provides evidence that cis P-tau may be a pathogenic factor that explains VaD, which is not generally linked to other dementias," added Chenxi Qiu, Ph.D., co-lead author and a postdoctoral research fellow at BIDMC, Harvard Medical School.
In a preclinical model of VaD, young mice showed signs of brain inflammation and memory loss within one month. However, treating these mice with the cis P-tau mAb prevented neural degradation and cognitive decline out to six months. In a separate preclinical model of AD, old mice showed severe cognitive impairment. Excitingly, this severe impairment was significantly reversed when mice were given the cis P-tau mAb.
"These data show that cis P-tau could be an early upstream pathogenic factor common to both diseases," said Albayram.
Translating information gained from preclinical models to humans is often difficult, but this study offers reasons to be optimistic. Accumulation of cis P-tau caused dramatic changes in the genetic architecture of affected cells in a VaD model; these changes were consistent with those seen in human AD patients. The researchers went on to show that treatment with the cis P-tau mAb reversed 85% to 90 % of those changes suggesting the power of this potential therapy.
"The genomic landscape really adapts after the silencing of this toxic protein," said Albayram. "That was a big discovery."
Not only are Albayram and Qiu excited about these findings, but colleagues at MUSC are already quite enthusiastic about this work.
"I can go on and on about this paper," said Adviye Ergul, M.D., Ph.D., professor in the College of Medicine, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at MUSC. "They provide robust evidence that there is accumulation of a specific form of the tau protein -- cis P-tau -- that highlights a different tau protein pathology in VaD research."
This groundbreaking research has opened the door for new potential immunotherapies and highlighted several new areas of research that need to be explored. While the researchers delineated a pathway that leads to the accumulation of cis P-tau, the underlying linkage between vascular abnormalities and activation of the pathway needs to be identified. A better understanding of how toxic cis P-tau interacts with the healthy trans P-tau could provide further insights into the progression of AD disease.
AD and VaD might not be the only diseases affected by high levels of cis P-tau. Other brain disorders with a vascular component might also arise from this toxic protein, but further study will be required to establish such a link.
"Cis P-tau may be a common, early and pathogenic factor underlying traumatic brain injury, VaD and AD," said Qiu.
As we get older and our memory begins to lapse -- misplacing our car keys or forgetting the name of a new acquaintance -- we fear the possibility that these are the first signs of dementia. And while there is currently no approved treatment to reverse the physiological effects of dementia, this new research may provide hope that new therapies are around the corner.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210610162350.htm
Memory biomarkers confirm aerobic exercise helps cognitive function in older adults
Study conducted on older adults with familial and genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease
June 10, 2021
Science Daily/Florida Atlantic University
Increasing evidence shows that physical activity and exercise training may delay or prevent the onset of Alzheimer's disease (AD). In aging humans, aerobic exercise training increases gray and white matter volume, enhances blood flow, and improves memory function. The ability to measure the effects of exercise on systemic biomarkers associated with risk for AD and relating them to key metabolomic alterations may further prevention, monitoring, and treatment efforts. However, systemic biomarkers that can measure exercise effects on brain function and that link to relevant metabolic responses are lacking.
To address this issue, Henriette van Praag, Ph.D., from Florida Atlantic University's Schmidt College of Medicine and Brain Institute and Ozioma Okonkwo, Ph.D., Wisconsin Alzheimer's Disease Research Center and Department of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and their collaborators, tested the hypotheses that three specific biomarkers, which are implicated in learning and memory, would increase in older adults following exercise training and correlate with cognition and metabolomics markers of brain health. They examined myokine Cathepsin B (CTSB), brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), and klotho, as well as metabolomics, which have become increasingly utilized to understand biochemical pathways that may be affected by AD.
Researchers performed a metabolomics analysis in blood samples of 23 asymptomatic late middle-aged adults, with familial and genetic risk for AD (mean age 65 years old, 50 percent female) who participated in the "aeRobic Exercise And Cognitive Health (REACH) Pilot Study" (NCT02384993) at the University of Wisconsin. The participants were divided into two groups: usual physical activity (UPA) and enhanced physical activity (EPA). The EPA group underwent 26 weeks of supervised treadmill training. Blood samples for both groups were taken at baseline and after 26 weeks.
Results of the study, published in the journal Frontiers in Endocrinology, showed that plasma CTSB levels were increased following this 26-week structured aerobic exercise training in older adults at risk for AD. Verbal learning and memory correlated positively with change in CTSB but was not related to BDNF or klotho. The present correlation between CTSB and verbal learning and memory suggests that CTSB may be useful as a marker for cognitive changes relevant to hippocampal function after exercise in a population at risk for dementia.
Plasma BDNF levels decreased in conjunction with metabolomic changes, including reductions in ceramides, sphingo- and phospholipids, as well as changes in gut microbiome metabolites and redox homeostasis. Indeed, multiple lipid metabolites relevant to AD were modified by exercise in a manner that may be neuroprotective. Serum klotho was unchanged but was associated with cardiorespiratory fitness.
"Our findings position CTSB, BDNF, and klotho as exercise biomarkers for evaluating the effect of lifestyle interventions on brain function," said van Praag, corresponding author, an associate professor of biomedical science, FAU's Schmidt College of Medicine, and a member of the FAU Brain Institute and the FAU Institute for Human Health & Disease Intervention (I-HEALTH). "Human studies often utilize expensive and low throughput brain imaging analyses that are not practical for large population-wide studies. Systemic biomarkers that can measure the effect of exercise interventions on Alzheimer's-related outcomes quickly and at low-cost could be used to inform disease progression and to develop novel therapeutic targets."
CTSB, a lysosomal enzyme, is secreted from muscle into circulation after exercise and is associated with memory function and adult hippocampal neurogenesis. Older adults with cognitive impairment have lower serum and brain CTSB levels. BDNF is a protein that is upregulated in the rodent hippocampus and cortex by running and is important for adult neurogenesis, synaptic plasticity, and memory function. Klotho is a circulating protein that can enhance cognition and synaptic function and is associated with resilience to neurodegenerative disease, possibly by supporting brain structures responsible for memory and learning.
"The positive association between CTSB and cognition, and the substantial modulation of lipid metabolites implicated in dementia, support the beneficial effects of exercise training on brain function and brain health in asymptomatic individuals at risk for Alzheimer's disease," said van Praag.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210610135527.htm
Largescale brain epigenetics study provides new insights into dementia
June 10, 2021
Science Daily/University of Exeter
The largest study of its kind has unveiled new insights into how genes are regulated in dementia, including discovering 84 new genes linked to the disease.
Led by the University of Exeter, the international collaboration combined and analysed data from more than 1,400 people across six different studies, in a meta-analysis published in Nature Communications. These studies had used brain samples from people who had died with Alzheimer's disease. The project, funded by Alzheimer's Society and supported by the Medical Research Council and the National Institutes for Health, looked at an epigenetic mark called DNA methylation at nearly half a million sites in the genome. Epigenetic processes control the extent to which genes are switched on and off, meaning they behave differently as needed across the different cell-types and tissues that make up a human body. Importantly, unlike our genes, epigenetic processes can be influenced by environmental factors, making them potentially reversible and a possible route to new treatments.
The study looked at epigenetic patterns across the genome, in a number of different regions of the brain. The team then related the amount of DNA methylation to the amount of neurofibrillary tangles within the brain, which is an important hallmark of the severity of Alzheimer's disease.
The team looked in different regions of the brain, which are affected in Alzheimer's disease before looking for common changes across these cortical regions. They identified 220 sites in the genome, including 84 new genes, which showed different levels of DNA methylation in the cortex in individuals with more severe Alzheimer's disease, which weren't seen in another area of the brain called the cerebellum.
The team went on to show that a subset of 110 of these sites could distinguish in two independent datasets whether a brain sample had high or low levels of disease, with more than 70 per cent accuracy. This suggests that epigenetic changes in the brain in Alzheimer's disease are very consistent. The findings were subsequently confirmed in an independent set of brain samples from the Brains for Dementia Research cohort funded by the Alzheimer's Society and Alzheimer's Research UK.
Professor Katie Lunnon, of the University of Exeter, who led the research, said: "Our study is the largest of its kind, giving important insights into genomic areas that could one day provide the key to new treatments. The next step for this work is to explore whether these epigenetic changes lead to measurable changes in the levels of genes and proteins being expressed. This will then allow us to explore whether we could repurpose existing drugs that are known to alter the expression levels of these genes and proteins, to effectively treat dementia"
The study included a number of international collaborators from the US (Columbia University and Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, Rush University Center in Chicago, Arizona State University), and Europe (Maastricht University in Netherlands, University of Saardland, Germany). The paper is titled 'A meta-analysis of epigenome-wide association studies in Alzheimer's disease highlights novel differentially methylated loci across cortex', published in Nature Communications.
Dr Richard Oakley, Head of Research, Alzheimer's Society said: "Epigenetics is a flourishing area of dementia research. Work like this, led by the University of Exeter, is another step forward in our understanding of the incredibly complex role our genes play in Alzheimer's disease.
"It's now important to delve into the specific impact of these epigenetic changes and the associated genes on the changes in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease. This work is in early stages but breakthroughs in research begins with work like this, and it brings us a step closer to developing new treatments for Alzheimer's disease.
"Alzheimer's Society is delighted to have part-funded this work and 'Brains for Dementia Research', which provided the tissue samples to this research team. Without the support of charities, this work simply would not be possible -- we are committed to investing in, and accelerating, dementia research. However, dementia research remains hugely underfunded. We need public support now more than ever to help us continue our ground-breaking research to make a world without dementia a reality."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210610091050.htm
Taking short breaks may help our brains learn new skills
Scientists discover that the resting brain repeatedly replays compressed memories of what was just practiced
June 8, 2021
Science Daily/NIH/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
In a study of healthy volunteers, National Institutes of Health researchers have mapped out the brain activity that flows when we learn a new skill, such as playing a new song on the piano, and discovered why taking short breaks from practice is a key to learning. The researchers found that during rest the volunteers' brains rapidly and repeatedly replayed faster versions of the activity seen while they practiced typing a code. The more a volunteer replayed the activity the better they performed during subsequent practice sessions, suggesting rest strengthened memories.
"Our results support the idea that wakeful rest plays just as important a role as practice in learning a new skill. It appears to be the period when our brains compress and consolidate memories of what we just practiced," said Leonardo G. Cohen, M.D., senior investigator at the NIH's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and the senior author of the study published in Cell Reports. "Understanding this role of neural replay may not only help shape how we learn new skills but also how we help patients recover skills lost after neurological injury like stroke."
The study was conducted at the NIH Clinical Center. Dr. Cohen's team used a highly sensitive scanning technique, called magnetoencephalography, to record the brain waves of 33 healthy, right-handed volunteers as they learned to type a five-digit test code with their left hands. The subjects sat in a chair and under the scanner's long, cone-shaped cap. An experiment began when a subject was shown the code "41234" on a screen and asked to type it out as many times as possible for 10 seconds and then take a 10 second break. Subjects were asked to repeat this cycle of alternating practice and rest sessions a total of 35 times.
During the first few trials, the speed at which subjects correctly typed the code improved dramatically and then leveled off around the 11th cycle. In a previous study, led by former NIH postdoctoral fellow Marlene Bönstrup, M.D., Dr. Cohen's team showed that most of these gains happened during short rests, and not when the subjects were typing. Moreover, the gains were greater than those made after a night's sleep and were correlated with a decrease in the size of brain waves, called beta rhythms. In this new report, the researchers searched for something different in the subjects' brain waves.
"We wanted to explore the mechanisms behind memory strengthening seen during wakeful rest. Several forms of memory appear to rely on the replaying of neural activity, so we decided to test this idea out for procedural skill learning," said Ethan R. Buch, Ph.D., a staff scientist on Dr. Cohen's team and leader of the study.
To do this, Leonardo Claudino, Ph.D., a former postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Cohen's lab, helped Dr. Buch develop a computer program which allowed the team to decipher the brain wave activity associated with typing each number in the test code.
The program helped them discover that a much faster version -- about 20 times faster -- of the brain activity seen during typing was replayed during the rest periods. Over the course of the first eleven practice trials, these compressed versions of the activity were replayed many times -- about 25 times -- per rest period. This was two to three times more often than the activity seen during later rest periods or after the experiments had ended.
Interestingly, they found that the frequency of replay during rest predicted memory strengthening. In other words, the subjects whose brains replayed the typing activity more often showed greater jumps in performance after each trial than those who replayed it less often.
"During the early part of the learning curve we saw that wakeful rest replay was compressed in time, frequent, and a good predictor of variability in learning a new skill across individuals," said Dr. Buch. "This suggests that during wakeful rest the brain binds together the memories required to learn a new skill."
As expected, the team discovered that the replay activity often happened in the sensorimotor regions of the brain, which are responsible for controlling movements. However, they also saw activity in other brain regions, namely the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex.
"We were a bit surprised by these last results. Traditionally, it was thought that the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex may not play such a substantive role in procedural memory. In contrast, our results suggest that these regions are rapidly chattering with the sensorimotor cortex when learning these types of skills," said Dr. Cohen. "Overall, our results support the idea that manipulating replay activity during waking rest may be a powerful tool that researchers can use to help individuals learn new skills faster and possibly facilitate rehabilitation from stroke."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210608154506.htm
Weak brain waves may warn of age-related neurodegenerative disease
June 8, 2021
Science Daily/eLife
Weakened electrical signals in the brain may be an early warning sign of age-related neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, suggests a study published today in eLife.
The findings hint at new ways to identify early on patients who may have an age-related brain disease. They also provide new insights on the changes that occur in the brain as these diseases develop.
"As tools for detecting Alzheimer's disease early are limited, there is a need to develop a reliable, non-invasive test that would enable early diagnosis," says first author Murty Dinavahi, who was a PhD Research Scholar at the Centre for Neuroscience, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, India, at the time the study was carried out, and is now a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Maryland, US.
Previous studies in mice with a condition similar to Alzheimer's disease had suggested that weakened gamma brain waves may be an early sign of disease. Based on these findings, Murty and colleagues conducted a community-based study on around 250 elderly subjects. They compared gamma wave activity in 12 people diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, and five with Alzheimer's disease, with their healthy peers.
The researchers used a technique called electroencephalography to measure electrical activity in the participants' brains while they viewed black and white patterns on a screen. These patterns are known to induce gamma oscillations in the part of the brain that processes visual information. The team also monitored the participants' eye movements during the experiments.
Their results showed that people who had been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer's disease had weaker gamma waves in their brain than healthy individuals of the same age.
"We observed reductions in the strength of gamma waves in early stages of age-related cognitive decline," Murty says. "Changes in these electrical signals could provide an early warning sign of an impending disease." He adds that an early diagnosis could help individuals put care plans in place or allow them to begin treatments sooner.
"Our work provides a low-cost and non-invasive way to detect early signs of Alzheimer's disease," concludes senior author Supratim Ray, Associate Professor at the Centre for Neuroscience, IISc. "This could be useful for clinicians and scientists studying early changes that take place in the brain during age-related neurodegenerative diseases, and potentially lead to new ways to diagnose and treat these conditions."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210608113213.htm
Men with sensory loss are more likely to be obese
New research finds 'significant' differences between genders in role of exercise
June 8, 2021
Science Daily/Anglia Ruskin University
Men who suffer sensory loss, particularly hearing loss, are more likely to be physically inactive and obese than women, according to a new study published in the European Journal of Public Health.
Researchers analysed data from more than 23,000 Spanish adults, and examined associations with physical inactivity and obesity in people with vision and hearing loss, and explored differences between men and women.
Results suggest inactive people with hearing loss were 1.78 times more likely to be obese compared to those who did not have any hearing loss. In people who had difficulty seeing, the odds ratio is slightly smaller, with a likelihood of obesity being 1.375 times higher than those who did not report vision loss.
The association between physical activity and obesity was higher in men with hearing loss, who were 2.319 times more likely to be obese than women who reported difficulty hearing. Obesity in those with sight loss was 1.556 times higher in inactive men than women.
Those with combined seeing and hearing difficulties had the highest prevalence of physical inactivity (44.8%) and obesity (26.1%). Analysis showed a significant association between physical inactivity and obesity in men with vision or hearing loss, but not in women.
Around 62% of adults in Spain are overweight, with 26% reporting as obese. In the UK, the figures are broadly similar at around 64% and 28% respectively, suggesting strong similarities between the countries.
A total of 11.04% of the people surveyed self-reported vision loss, 6.96% reported hearing loss, and 3.93% reported suffering both vision and hearing loss.
Lead author Professor Shahina Pardhan, Director of the Vision and Eye Research Institute at Anglia Ruskin University, said: "It is clear from our study that there are significant differences between genders.
"Although women were overall less physically active than men, we found an association between physical inactivity and obesity in men, but not in women. This indicates that, especially in people with vision and hearing losses, exercise and being active has a very important role in preventing obesity for men.
"Adults, especially those with sensory losses, should be encouraged to be as physically active as possible but there are obviously challenges, strongly suggesting that intervention and encouragement would play a very important role.
"An effective strategy to increase the levels of physical activity in this population group would be through targeted intervention programmes based on health awareness on the importance of physical activity."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210608113208.htm
Women's mental health has higher association with dietary factors
Exercise could reduce negative association of certain food and mental distress in mature women
June 9, 2021
Science Daily/Binghamton University
Women's mental health likely has a higher association with dietary factors than men's, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York.
Lina Begdache, assistant professor of health and wellness studies at Binghamton University, had previously published research on diet and mood that suggests that a high-quality diet improves mental health. She wanted to test whether customization of diet improves mood among men and women ages 30 or older.
Along with research assistant Cara M. Patrissy, Begdache dissected the different food groups that are associated with mental distress in men and women ages 30 years and older, as well as studied the different dietary patterns in relation to exercise frequency and mental distress. The results suggest that women's mental health has a higher association with dietary factors than that of men. Mental distress and exercise frequency were associated with different dietary and lifestyle patterns, which support the concept of customizing diet and lifestyle factors to improve mental wellbeing.
"We found a general relationship between eating healthy, following healthy dietary practices, exercise and mental well-being," said Begdache. "Interestingly, we found that for unhealthy dietary patterns, the level of mental distress was higher in women than in men, which confirmed that women are more susceptible to unhealthy eating than men."
Based on this study and others, diet and exercise may be the first line of defense against mental distress in mature women, said Begdache.
"Fast food, skipping breakfast, caffeine and high-glycemic (HG) food are all associated with mental distress in mature women," said Begdache. "Fruits and dark green leafy vegetables (DGLV) are associated with mental well-being. The extra information we learned from this study is that exercise significantly reduced the negative association of HG food and fast food with mental distress," said Begadache.
This research provides the framework needed for healthcare professionals for customizing dietary plans to promote exercise and improve mental well-being in mature adults, said Begdache. It could also provide a new perspective for the research community when assessing the role of diet on mental distress.
The researchers are conducting a parallel study with young men and women, looking at diet quality in addition to sleep and seasonal change variables from a longitudinal perspective.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210609143348.htm
Drinking alcohol is linked to reduced chances of pregnancy
Study suggests women should avoid alcohol in second half of menstrual cycle
June 8, 2021
Science Daily/European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology
A study of the associations between drinking alcohol and the chances of becoming pregnant suggests that women who want to conceive should avoid heavy drinking. In the second half of menstrual cycle even moderate drinking is linked to reduced chances of pregnancy.
The study, published today (Wednesday) in Human Reproduction[1], one of the world's leading reproductive medicine journals, investigated alcohol intake and fecundability, which is defined as the probability of conceiving during a single menstrual cycle. It is the first study to look at this according to the difference phases of women's menstrual cycles.
Researchers led by Dr Kira Taylor, associate professor of epidemiology and population health at the University of Louisville School of Public Health and Information Sciences (Kentucky, USA), analysed data from the Mount Sinai Study of Women Office Workers. Women aged 19-41 years were recruited between 1990 and 1994 and followed for a maximum of 19 menstrual cycles. The women completed daily diaries reporting how much alcohol they drank and what type, and they provided urine samples on the first and second day of each menstrual cycle in order to check for pregnancy.
Heavy drinking was defined as more than six alcoholic drinks a week, moderate drinking was three to six drinks a week, and binge drinking was defined as four or more drinks on a single day. Each drink consisted of a third of a litre of beer (355 millilitres), a medium glass of wine (148 millilitres), or just under a double shot of spirits (44 millilitres). The researchers collected information on factors that could affect the results, such as age, medical history, smoking, obesity, use of birth control methods and intention to become pregnant. Data on 413 women were available for the current study.
Dr Taylor said: "We found that heavy drinking during any phase of the menstrual cycle was significantly associated with a reduced probability of conception compared to non-drinkers. This is important because some women who are trying to conceive might believe it is 'safe' to drink during certain parts of the menstrual cycle.
"During the luteal phase, which is the last two weeks of the menstrual cycle before bleeding would start and when the process of implantation occurs, not only heavy drinking but also moderate drinking was significantly associated with a reduced probability of conception.
"At the time of ovulation, usually around day 14 of the cycle, consuming a lot of alcohol -- either heavy or binge drinking -- was significantly associated with reduced chances of conception."
Compared to non-drinkers both moderate and heavy drinking during the luteal phase was linked to a reduction in the odds of conceiving by about 44%. Heavy drinking during the ovulatory part of the cycle was also associated with significant 61% reduced odds of becoming pregnant. However, the researchers stress these are all estimates and should be treated with caution. [2]
"If we assume that a typical, healthy, non-drinking woman in the general population who is trying to conceive has approximately a 25% chance of conceiving during one menstrual cycle, then out of 100 women approximately 25 non-drinkers would conceive in a particular cycle, about 20 moderate drinkers would conceive and only about 11 heavy drinkers would conceive," said Dr Taylor. "But the effect of moderate drinking during the luteal phase is more pronounced and only about 16 moderate drinkers would conceive.
"Our study only included a few hundred women and, while we believe the results strongly suggest that heavy and even moderate alcohol intake affects the ability to conceive, the exact percentages and numbers should be viewed as rough estimates."
Each extra day of binge drinking was associated with an approximate 19% reduction in the odds of conceiving during the luteal phase and a 41% reduction during the ovulatory phase [3]. The researchers found no difference in their results between different types of drinks.
The study is not able to show that drinking alcohol causes the reduction in the chances of becoming pregnant, only that it is associated with it. Possible biological mechanisms that might explain the association could be that alcohol intake affects the processes involved in ovulation so that no egg is released during the ovulatory part of the cycle, and that alcohol could affect the ability of a fertilised egg to implant in the womb.
Dr Taylor said: "This is the first study to examine the effect of alcohol on fecundability during specific phases of the menstrual cycle, using daily data on alcohol and other important factors such as smoking and unprotected intercourse over a period of up to 19 menstrual cycles."
Limitations of the study included the fact that not all women were trying to conceive; alcohol intake has increased since the time of the study and the women in the study were leaner, on average, than women today; the study used self-reported data and women might under-report their alcohol consumption; and the influence of drinking by male partners was not assessed.
She concluded: "Finally, the results in this study should not be construed to mean that drinking alcohol prevents pregnancy. In other words, alcohol is not birth control. Even if a woman drinks alcohol heavily, if she has unprotected intercourse, she can become pregnant."
Notes
[1] "The association between alcohol intake and fecundability during menstrual cycle phases," by Mohammad Yaser Anwar et al. Human Reproduction journal.
[2] Odds are different to "chances" or the "probability" of becoming pregnant. Converting odds ratios to "chances" or "probability" is complicated. However, if you want to use them then, still working on the assumption that the average woman has a 25% chance of conceiving per menstrual cycle, moderate or heavy drinking during the luteal phase was associated with a 40% reduced chance of conceiving, and heavy drinking during the ovulatory window was associated with a 54% reduced chance of conceiving.
[3] If you want to convert these odds ratios to "chances" or "probability" the figures are: each extra day of binge drinking was associated with an approximate 16% reduction in the probability of conceiving during the luteal phase and 35% reduction during the ovulatory phase.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210608203716.htm
Bacteria are connected to how babies experience fear
New research shows that an infant's gut microbiome could contain clues to help monitor and support healthy neurological development
June 4, 2021
Science Daily/Michigan State University
New research from MSU shows that an infant's gut microbiome could contain clues to help monitor and support healthy neurological development
Why do some babies react to perceived danger more than others? According to new research from Michigan State University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, part of the answer may be found in a surprising place: an infant's digestive system.
The human digestive system is home to a vast community of microorganisms known as the gut microbiome. The MSU-UNC research team discovered that the gut microbiome was different in infants with strong fear responses and infants with milder reactions.
These fear responses -- how someone reacts to a scary situation -- in early life can be indicators of future mental health. And there is growing evidence tying neurological well-being to the microbiome in the gut.
The new findings suggest that the gut microbiome could one day provide researchers and physicians with a new tool to monitor and support healthy neurological development.
"This early developmental period is a time of tremendous opportunity for promoting healthy brain development," said MSU's Rebecca Knickmeyer, leader of the new study published June 2 in the journal Nature Communications. "The microbiome is an exciting new target that can be potentially used for that."
Studies of this connection and its role in fear response in animals led Knickmeyer, an associate professor in the College of Human Medicine's Department of Pediatrics and Human Development, and her team to look for something similar in humans. And studying how humans, especially young children, handle fear is important because it can help forecast mental health in some cases.
"Fear reactions are a normal part of child development. Children should be aware of threats in their environment and be ready to respond to them" said Knickmeyer, who also works in MSU's Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering, or IQ. "But if they can't dampen that response when they're safe, they may be at heightened risk to develop anxiety and depression later on in life."
On the other end of the response spectrum, children with exceptionally muted fear responses may go on to develop callous, unemotional traits associated with antisocial behavior, Knickmeyer said.
To determine whether the gut microbiome was connected to fear response in humans, Knickmeyer and her co-workers designed a pilot study with about 30 infants. The researchers selected the cohort carefully to keep as many factors impacting the gut microbiome as consistent as possible. For example, all of the children were breastfed and none was on antibiotics.
The researchers then characterized the children's microbiome by analyzing stool samples and assessed a child's fear response using a simple test: observing how a child reacted to someone entering the room while wearing a Halloween mask.
"We really wanted the experience to be enjoyable for both the kids and their parents. The parents were there the whole time and they could jump in whenever they wanted," Knickmeyer said. "These are really the kinds of experiences infants would have in their everyday lives."
Compiling all the data, the researchers saw significant associations between specific features of the gut microbiome and the strength of infant fear responses.
For example, children with uneven microbiomes at 1 month of age were more fearful at 1 year of age. Uneven microbiomes are dominated by a small set of bacteria, whereas even microbiomes are more balanced.
The researchers also discovered that the content of the microbial community at 1 year of age related to fear responses. Compared with less fearful children, infants with heightened responses had more of some types of bacteria and less of others.
The team, however, did not observe a connection between the children's gut microbiome and how the children reacted to strangers who weren't wearing masks. Knickmeyer said this is likely due to the different parts of the brain involved with processing potentially frightening situations.
"With strangers, there is a social element. So children may have a social wariness, but they don't see strangers as immediate threats," Knickmeyer said. "When children see a mask, they don't see it as social. It goes into that quick-and-dirty assessment part of the brain."
As part of the study, the team also imaged the children's brains using MRI technology. They found that the content of the microbial community at 1 year was associated with the size of the amygdala, which is part of the brain involved in making quick decisions about potential threats.
Connecting the dots suggests that the microbiome may influence how the amygdala develops and operates. That's one of many interesting possibilities uncovered by this new study, which the team is currently working to replicate. Knickmeyer is also preparing to start up new lines of inquiry with new collaborations at IQ, asking new questions that she's excited to answer.
"We have a great opportunity to support neurological health early on," she said. "Our long-term goal is that we'll learn what we can do to foster healthy growth and development."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210604135433.htm
Healthy diet before, during pregnancy linked to lower complications
June 2, 2021
Science Daily/NIH/Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
A healthy diet around the time of conception through the second trimester may reduce the risk of several common pregnancy complications, suggests a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health. Expectant women in the study who scored high on any of three measures of healthy eating had lower risks for gestational diabetes, pregnancy-related blood pressure disorders and preterm birth. The study was conducted by Cuilin Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues at NIH's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). It appears in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
The researchers analyzed dietary data collected multiple times during pregnancy from the NICHD Fetal Growth Study. Nearly 1,900 women responded to questionnaires on their diets at eight to 13 weeks of pregnancy and were asked to estimate what they ate in the previous three months. At 16 to 22 weeks and 24 to 29 weeks, the women identified what they ate in the previous 24 hours. Their responses were scored according to three measures of healthy eating: the Alternate Healthy Eating Index (AHEI), Alternate Mediterranean Diet (AMED), and Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet. All three measures emphasize consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grain, nuts and legumes while limiting red and processed meat.
Overall, the researchers found that following any of the diets around the time of conception through the second trimester was associated with a lower risk of gestational diabetes, hypertension, preeclampsia and preterm delivery. For example, women with a high AHEI score at 16 to 22 weeks had a 32% lower risk for gestational diabetes than women with a low AHEI score. Women with a high DASH score at eight to 12 weeks and 16 to 22 weeks had a 19% lower risk for pregnancy-related high blood pressure disorders. A high AMED score at 24 to 29 weeks or a high DASH score at 24 to 29 weeks was associated with a 50% lower risk for preterm birth.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210602091425.htm
Fat around the heart linked to increased risk of heart failure
May 24, 2021
Science Daily/The Mount Sinai Hospital / Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Having excess pericardial fat -- fat around the heart -- increases the risk of developing heart failure, especially in women, according to new Mount Sinai research.
Women with high amounts of pericardial fat are twice as likely to develop heart failure, while men are 50 percent more likely, according to the study, published in the May 24 online issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. It is the largest study to identify the link between pericardial fat and heart failure, which could potentially lead to early intervention and heart disease prevention.
"For nearly two decades we have known that obesity, based on simple measurement of height and weight, can double one's risk of heart failure, but now, we have gone a step further by using imaging technology to show that excess pericardial fat, perhaps due to its location close to the heart muscle, further augments the risk of this potentially fatal condition -- heart failure" explains lead researcher Satish Kenchaiah, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. "This work provides us with an important tool to stratify patients into higher and lower risk of heart failure, which can possibly lead to early intervention and heart failure prevention to ultimately save people's lives."
Researchers involved with a multi-institutional collaboration examined the association between pericardial fat and the risk of heart failure by using chest computed tomography (CT) scans from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), a medical research study sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health. This prospective study used CT scans from nearly 7,000 women and men between 45 and 84 years of age across the United States with diverse racial backgrounds to measure pericardial fat. None of the participants had evidence of heart disease when the study began.
Researchers followed these participants for more than 17 years and noted that almost 400 of them developed heart failure. Their analysis found that excess pericardial fat was associated with a higher risk of heart failure in both women and men, even after adjusting for established risk factors for heart failure such as age, cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, sedentary lifestyle, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, and heart attacks. After accounting for these risk factors for heart failure, high pericardial fat volume increased the risk of developing heart failure by approximately 100 percent, or double, in women and about 50 percent in men. For this study, the researchers defined excess or "high" pericardial fat volume as 70 cubic centimeters (2.4 fluid ounces) or more in women, and 120 cubic centimeters (4 fluid ounces) or more in men. Amounts below that were considered "normal."
The researchers also reported that pericardial fat was weakly or moderately correlated with indicators of being overweight or obese such as body mass index, waist girth, hip circumference, and waist-to-hip ratio, and that it remained a risk factor for heart failure above and beyond the risk from being overweight or obese. In fact, pericardial fat was associated with new heart failure cases regardless of whether the participants were lean, overweight, or obese. Also, in a smaller sample of participants who underwent abdominal CT scans to determine the amount of belly fat beneath the skin and in the abdomen, pericardial fat predicted the risk of heart failure even after taking excess belly fat into consideration.
The link between pericardial fat and heart failure was similar among all racial and ethnic groups represented in the study: white, Black, Hispanic, and Chinese.
"Our research provides strong evidence that excess pericardial fat substantially raises the risk of heart failure," says Dr. Kenchaiah. "Additional studies are needed to confirm our findings. Future research in this field should also focus on ways and means, such as eating a heart-healthy diet and staying physically active, to achieve and maintain optimal body weight and reduce and avoid fat deposition around the heart."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210524161834.htm
Mothers' depression impacts mother-infant relationships
Women with depression during pregnancy, or with a history of depression, had a reduced quality of mother-infant interaction
May 25, 2021
Science Daily/King's College London
In a study funded by National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) researchers examined whether depression, either before or during pregnancy, affects the mother-infant relationship. The research was published today (Tuesday 25 May) in BJPsych Open.
Researchers looked at the quality of mother-infant interactions eight weeks and 12 months after birth in three groups of women; healthy women, women with clinically-significant depression in pregnancy, and women with a lifetime history of depression but healthy pregnancies.
The study used a sample of 131 women: 51 healthy mothers with no current or past depression, 52 mothers with depression referred to the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust Perinatal Psychiatry Services, and 28 'history-only' mothers with a history of depression but no current diagnosis.
Quality of interaction
At both eight weeks and 12 months, mothers and babies in the depression and history-only groups displayed a reduced quality of interaction. Specifically, at eight weeks, 62% in the group of mothers with depression during pregnancy and 56% in the group of mothers with a history-only of depression scored in the lowest category of relationship quality, where therapeutic interventions are recommended, compared with 37% in the healthy group. All mother and baby groups improved in their quality of interaction between 8 weeks and 12 months which researchers say indicates that with time all mothers and their babies can become more attuned to each other.
At six days, new-born babies of mothers in the depression and history-only groups had decreased social-interactive behaviour, which, together with maternal socio-economic difficulties, was also predictive of a reduced quality of interaction, while postnatal depression was not.
Dr Rebecca Bind, lead author and Research Associate at Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, says: "Our findings suggest that perinatal mental health professionals should offer support not only to women with depression during pregnancy, but also to pregnant women with a history of depression, as they may also be at risk of interaction difficulties. Future research should try to understand why a history of depression, despite a healthy perinatal period, may impact the developing relationship."
Senior author Carmine Pariante, Professor of Biological Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London and Consultant Perinatal Psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, said:
"We recommend that healthcare professionals provide pregnant women at risk of interaction difficulties with examples of positive caregiving behaviours, and with ways to engage their babies and understand their needs, all of which could be incorporated into parenting and birth classes and health visits. We also suggest that interventions that can help the mother-infant interaction should be made more widely available, such as video feedback, where a clinician and mother discuss what behaviours work best to engage and comfort the baby, and structured mother-baby activities, such as art and singing groups. This is especially important because we know that the early years are vital for future mental health and wellbeing."
The relationship between mothers and infants was assessed using the Crittenden Child-Adult Relationship Experimental-Index which assesses 'dyadic synchrony', a term that describes the quality of the relationship as a whole. Researchers analysed films of three-minute interactions filmed at eight weeks and 12 months postnatal. Mothers played with their babies while researchers scored the relationship based on seven aspects of behaviour: facial expression, vocal expression, position and body contact, affection and arousal, turn-taking contingencies, control, and choice of activity. The researchers are grateful to the women and their infants who participated in the PRAM-D study and to everyone on the study team who recruited, collected, and analysed data.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210525084315.htm
Study finds women with osteoporosis and low bone density are at increased risk of hearing loss
Bisphosphonates, commonly prescribed to reduce bone fracture risks, were not shown to alter likelihood of hearing loss
May 24, 2021
Science Daily/Brigham and Women's Hospital
Hearing loss is the third most common chronic health condition in the United States. Previous studies of people with hearing loss have uncovered higher prevalence of osteoporosis -- a disease in which the bones become weak and brittle -- and low bone density (LBD). But research on whether these conditions may influence risk of hearing loss over time is scarce. It is also unknown whether hearing loss can be avoided by taking bisphosphonates, the primary medication used to prevent fractures in people with reduced bone density. As part of the Conservation of Hearing Study (CHEARS), researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital analyzed data from nearly 144,000 women who were followed for up to 34 years. They found that risk of subsequent moderate or worse hearing loss was up to 40 percent higher in study participants with osteoporosis or LBD. The study, published in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society, also found that bisphosphonates did not alter risk of hearing loss.
"Adult onset hearing loss is typically irreversible; therefore, CHEARS focuses on identifying potentially modifiable risk factors that may contribute to hearing loss," said study leader Sharon Curhan, MD, ScM, of the Channing Division of Network Medicine at the Brigham. "We were inspired by a recent study that found that bisphosphonates may help prevent noise-induced hearing damage in mice. We wanted to investigate whether bisphosphonates alter risk of hearing loss in adults, in addition to whether there is a longitudinal association between osteoporosis or LBD and risk of subsequent hearing loss."
For their analysis, the researchers used data from the decades-long Nurses' Health Study (NHS) and NHS II, two large ongoing prospective cohorts of female registered nurses, established in 1976 and 1989, respectively. The researchers examined hearing loss that was moderate or worse in severity, as self-reported by participants on questionnaires completed every two years. Additionally, they used the CHEARS Audiometry Assessment Arm to incorporate data on participants' audiometric thresholds (a measure of hearing sensitivity based on the loudness of sound).
In both the NHS and NHS II cohorts, the researchers found that the risk of hearing loss was higher in women with osteoporosis or LBD, and that taking bisphosphonates did not moderate the elevated risk. More research is required to understand whether the type, dose or timing of bisphosphonate use might influence its impact.
The researchers found that a history of vertebral fracture was associated with up to a 40 percent higher risk of hearing loss, but the same did not hold true for hip fractures, the two most common osteoporosis-related fractures. "The differing findings between these skeletal sites may reflect differences in the composition and metabolism of the bones in the spine and in the hip," Curhan said. "These findings could provide new insight into the changes in the bone that surrounds the middle and inner ear that may contribute to hearing loss."
While the underlying mechanisms by which osteoporosis and LBD may contribute to aging-related hearing loss remain unclear, the researchers suggest that abnormal bone remodeling and changes in the pathways involved in maintaining bone homeostasis may influence the integrity of the bone that protects the nerves and structures involved in hearing or alter ion and fluid metabolism in the cochlea, the main structure involved in hearing.
Advantages of using data from these well-characterized cohorts include the large study population, extensive array of detailed information, impressive follow-up rates and reliable information on health-related outcomes, as the participants are trained health care providers. However, the researchers note that their study is limited in its generalizability, as participants are predominantly white, with similar educational achievements and socio-economic statuses. Curhan points out that additional studies that examine these associations in men and non-white women would be informative.
Additionally, the investigators plan to examine in the future whether calcium and vitamin D intake are associated with hearing loss, as they have been shown to help prevent osteoporosis. Previously, the researchers found that eating a healthy diet, staying physically active, not smoking, and maintaining a healthy weight all help reduce the risk of hearing loss.
"Osteoporosis and low bone density may be important contributors to aging-related hearing loss," Curhan said. "Building lifelong healthy diet and lifestyle habits could provide important benefits for protecting bone and hearing health in the future."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210524110252.htm
'No level of smoke exposure is safe'
Study links secondhand smoke during pregnancy to epigenetic changes in babies
May 19, 2021
Science Daily/Virginia Commonwealth University
Nearly a quarter of pregnant women say they've been around secondhand smoke -- in their homes, at work, around a friend or relative -- which, according to new research, is linked to epigenetic changes -- meaning changes to how genes are regulated rather than changes to the genetic code itself -- in babies that could raise the risk of developmental disorders and cancer.
The study, published today in Environmental Health Perspectivesby researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center, is the first to connect secondhand smoke during pregnancy with epigenetic modifications to disease-related genes, measured at birth, which supports the idea that many adult diseases have their origins in environmental exposures -- such as stress, poor nutrition, pollution or tobacco smoke -- during early development.
"What we recommend to mothers in general is that no level of smoke exposure is safe," said study lead author Bernard Fuemmeler, Ph.D., M.P.H., associate director for population science and interim co-leader of the Cancer Prevention and Control program at VCU Massey Cancer Center. "Even low levels of smoke from secondhand exposure affect epigenetic marks in disease-related pathways. That doesn't mean everyone who is exposed will have a child with some disease outcome, but it contributes to a heightened risk."
Fuemmeler and colleagues analyzed data from 79 pregnant women enrolled in the Newborn Epigenetics Study (NEST) between 2005 and 2011. During the first trimester, all had a concentration of cotinine -- a nicotine byproduct -- in their blood consistent with low levels of smoke exposure, ranging from essentially none to levels consistent with secondhand smoke.
After these women gave birth, the researchers sampled the umbilical cord blood, which is the same blood that circulates through the fetus in utero, and performed what's referred to as an epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) to search for correlations between blood cotinine levels of the mothers during pregnancy and epigenetic patterns in the babies at birth.
When cotinine levels were higher, the newborns were more likely to have epigenetic "marks" on genes that control the development of brain function, as well as genes related to diabetes and cancer.
These marks could mean either unusually many or unusually few molecules bound to the DNA strand, which affects how accessible a particular gene is. If a gene is bound up tightly by lots of marks, then it's harder for molecular machinery to access and less likely to be expressed. On the other hand, if a gene is relatively unencumbered, then it might be expressed at higher levels than normal. Tipping the scale in either direction could lead to disease.
To solidify their results, the team repeated the analysis in a separate sample of 115 women and found changes to two of the same disease-related epigenetic regions -- one that regulates genes involved in inflammation and diabetes and another that regulates cardiovascular and nervous system functions -- are correlated with cotinine levels in mothers.
In all cases, the analyses controlled for race, ethnicity, age, prior number of children and maternal education.
"It highlights the importance of clean air," said Fuemmeler, who is also a professor of health behavior and policy in the VCU School of Medicine and holds the Gordon D. Ginder, M.D., Chair in Cancer Research at Massey. "It's important not only for our homes, but also in the environment. Clean air policies limit smoke in public, and for pregnant women that may have long-term effects on offspring."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210519120815.htm
Flickering screens may help children with reading and writing difficulties
June 10, 2021
Science Daily/University of Gothenburg
Previous studies have shown that children with attention difficulties and/or ADHD solve cognitive tasks better when they are exposed to auditory white noise. However, this is the first time that such a link has been demonstrated between visual white noise and cognitive abilities such as memory, reading and non-word decoding in children with reading and writing difficulties.
"The white noise to which we exposed the children, also called visual pixel noise, can be compared with giving children glasses. The effect on reading and memory was immediate," explains Göran Söderlund, Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Gothenburg and Professor of Special Education at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences.
11-year-olds tested
The study was conducted on around 80 students in the Småland region of southern Sweden. The children who took part were selected following a word recognition test and were split into three groups: good readers, children with some reading difficulties and children with major reading difficulties (i.e. having phonological impairments).
In the study, the children were asked to read 12 words while being exposed to four different levels of visual white noise, from zero to high. The test involved assessing how many of the words the children could read correctly and how many words they were able to recall afterwards.
White noise improves reading skills and memory
The results showed that the group with major reading difficulties, particularly phonological difficulties, performed significantly better when exposed to visual pixel noise. They read more words correctly and also recalled more words in the moderate noise conditions. The white noise had no effect or negative effects on the good readers and those with only minor reading problems.
"This is the first evidence of visual white noise having effects on higher-level cognition, in this case both reading and memory," says Göran Söderlund.
Right amount of white noise key
The children were exposed to different levels of white noise, with the results showing that the amount of noise is critical for reading and memory.
"You can compare it with being shortsighted and needing glasses. We saw that when we exposed the children to a medium level of white noise, their reading improved. However, their reading skills were less good when there was no noise or a high level of noise," adds Göran.
"These results show that children with reading and writing difficulties can be helped with an incredibly simple intervention. By adjusting screens in school or at home, we hope to be able to resolve their problems at a stroke. This is the first study of its kind, and replications are needed."
Further research required
Göran Söderlund now wants to further investigate the effects of white noise. He hopes that new studies can answer the question of whether practising with white noise for a prolonged period can lead to lasting improvements.
"It's worth exploring, as we just don't know. This first study of ours is basic research. But our results show that the children improved immediately, so it's important to continue with new studies to establish whether this simple measure, which everyone can do on their own laptop, will actually provide enduring help for these children."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210610091052.htm
Persistent insomnia symptoms since childhood associated with mood, anxiety disorders
Study emphasizes importance of early interventions to address insomnia symptoms in children
June 9, 2021
Science Daily/American Academy of Sleep Medicine
A 15-year longitudinal study shows that childhood insomnia symptoms that persist into adulthood are strong determinants of mood and anxiety disorders in young adults.
Results show that insomnia symptoms persisting from childhood through adolescence and into adulthood were associated with a 2.8-fold increased risk of internalizing disorders. Insomnia symptoms that newly developed over the course of the study were associated with a 1.9-fold increased risk of internalizing disorders. No increased risk of internalizing disorders was found for those children in whom insomnia symptoms remitted during the study period.
"We found that about 40% of children do not outgrow their insomnia symptoms in the transition to adolescence and are at risk of developing mental health disorders later on during early adulthood," said lead author Julio Fernandez-Mendoza, who has a doctorate in psychobiology and is an associate professor at Penn State College of Medicine. He is a psychologist board certified in behavioral sleep medicine at Penn State Health Sleep Research and Treatment Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
Data were analyzed from the Penn State Child Cohort, a population-based sample of 700 children with a median age of 9 years. The researchers had followed up 8 years later with 421 participants when they were adolescents (median age of 16 years) and now 15 years later with 492 of them when they were young adults (median age of 24 years). Insomnia symptoms were defined as moderate-to-severe difficulties initiating or maintaining sleep.
The symptoms were parent-reported in childhood and self-reported in adolescence and young adulthood. The presence of internalizing disorders was defined as a self-report of a diagnosis or treatment for mood and/or anxiety disorders. Results were adjusted for sex, race/ethnicity, age, and any prior history of internalizing disorders or use of medications for mental health problems.
According to the authors, childhood insomnia symptoms have been shown to be associated with internalizing disorders, which include depressive disorders and anxiety disorders. "These new findings further indicate that early sleep interventions are warranted to prevent future mental health problems, as children whose insomnia symptoms improved over time were not at increased risk of having a mood or anxiety disorder as young adults," said Fernandez-Mendoza.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210609143437.htm
A link between childhood stress and early molars
June 9, 2021
Science Daily/University of Pennsylvania
Early in her career neuroscientist Allyson Mackey began thinking about molars. As a researcher who studies brain development, she wanted to know whether when these teeth arrived might indicate early maturation in children.
"I've long been concerned that if kids grow up too fast, their brains will mature too fast and will lose plasticity at an earlier age. Then they'll go into school and have trouble learning at the same rate as their peers," says Mackey, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Penn. "Of course, not every kid who experiences stress or [is] low income will show this pattern of accelerated development."
What would help, she thought, was a scalable, objective way -- a physical manifestation, of sorts -- to indicate how children embodied and responded to stresses in their world. Eruption timing of the first permanent molars proved to be just that.
In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Mackey, with doctoral student Cassidy McDermott and colleagues from Penn's School of Dental Medicine and the University of Missouri-Kansas City, shows that children from lower-income backgrounds and those who go through greater adverse childhood experiences get their first permanent molars earlier. The findings, generated initially from a small study and replicated using a nationally representative dataset, align with a broader pattern of accelerated development often seen under conditions of early-life stress.
"It's really important for us to understand how to detect early maturation sooner," Mackey says. "Right now, we're relying on seeing when kids hit puberty, which might be too late for some meaningful interventions. If we can inexpensively see that a child is experiencing this maturation earlier, we might be able to direct more intervention resources toward them."
A novel rating system
Broadly speaking, Mackey's lab studies how the brain changes and grows as people learn. It's well-established that stress during childhood speeds up maturation and that children who hit puberty earlier are at greater risk for both physical and mental health problems in adulthood.
Beyond that, in studies across primate species, molar eruption has been used to measure childhood length and correlates with a number of other developmental events. Similarly, for humans, the timing of dental events often plays a role in estimating biological age.
"That all made molar eruption a compelling developmental indicator," says McDermott, who is training to be a clinical psychologist.
It helped that more than 100 children, ages 4 to 7, had been participating in two Penn brain development studies, which included structural and functional MRI scans. "There's one type of MRI scan called a T2 weighted scan where you can visualize the morphology of the tooth pretty well," McDermott says. These scans -- typically used to look at the brain -- showed the researchers just how close these molars were to breaking through the gum line.
Once Mackey and McDermott realized this, they partnered with Katherine Hilton, then a student in Penn Dental Medicine, and Muralidhar Mupparapu, a professor in the Department of Oral Medicine, who developed a novel scale to precisely rate each tooth's position.
"The scale ranges from 1 to 4," McDermott says. "At the low end of the scale is 1, which is before the tooth has really developed at all. As the tooth emerges, there are intermediate stages, and the highest rating, a 4, is when the tooth is fully in the mouth and parallel with the other teeth." Four molars each received a score, which then got averaged, leaving a single score per individual.
Controlling for factors like age and gender, the researchers then looked for associations between early environment and molar eruption. "What we found is that income and adverse childhood experiences are both individually associated with molar eruptions status," McDermott says.
Replicating the findings
Those findings derived from just 117 participants, so although the correlation was clear, Mackey and McDermott hoped to replicate what they'd seen.
Collaborators at the University of Missouri-Kansas City told them about a large population-representative dataset called the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which is publicly available and includes dental data, demographic data, and family income, among other measures.
"Because our sample is only from one city and is much smaller than a population-representative study like that," McDermott says, "we saw it as an opportunity to verify that the findings exist outside of what we had collected in Philadelphia."
Though some facets differed -- NHANES measures dental development a little differently, for example -- the models showed similar results, indicating a connection between lower family income and earlier first molars.
Whether this overall trend is new or just now coming to light is something Mackey wants to study further. She's also curious about when the rate of maturation gets set. "Is it as early as in utero or is it dynamically adjusted based on stressors in the world?" she says. "If it's the latter, that tells you there are more opportunities to intervene."
Present implications, future work
There are still significant unknowns, as well as findings that need further examination, Mackey says. For example, the research team found racial disparities in this timing, with first molars emerging in Black children sooner than in white children.
"These race differences in molar eruption have been known for a long time, but no one thought critically about where they came from," she says. "It's consistent with higher levels of stress due to structural racism. This is a clear indication that it's not just speculation that experiences with racism can cause stress and early aging. They are having an effect on kids that we can't ignore."
For all children, a year-plus of pandemic-driven grief and social isolation most certainly amplified stress levels, making it even more important to understand who is at greatest risk for early maturation, Mackey says.
Yet she and McDermott emphasize that molar timing shouldn't become another parental fear. "What I really don't want is for parents to either worry or feel complacent just based on when their kids got their molars," says Mackey. "We don't have those data yet."
The Penn researchers are working on it. In the future, they hope to collaborate with dental offices to recruit children into studies based on their molar-eruption status. The goal would be to follow them into adulthood, to get more information on what precisely early first molars may indicate. "If this is the meaningful discovery that I think it is," Mackey says, "I would love for many scientists to jump on board and test these hypotheses."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210609123414.htm
Sugar overload may be a recipe for long-term problems
A new study on the impact of sugar supports World Health Organization recommendations
June 8, 2021
Science Daily/Queensland University of Technology
Children who consume too much sugar could be at greater risk of becoming obese, hyperactive, and cognitively impaired, as adults, according to the results of a new study of mice led by QUT and published by Frontiers in Neuroscience.
The study resulted in a reduced risk of sugar-induced weight gain and other health problems when the mice were given a much smaller daily dose of sucrose, supporting World Health Organisation calls for a reduction in sugar intake by humans.
One of the lead authors, QUT neuroscientist Professor Selena Bartlett, says many children, adolescents, and adults in more than 60 countries, including Australia, have a diet consisting of more than four times the sugar (100g) recommended by the World Health Organisation (25g per person per day).
"More work needs to be done in the investigation of the long-term effects of sugar on adolescents and adults but our results with the mouse model are very promising," said Professor Bartlett.
"Recent evidence shows obesity and impulsive behaviours caused by poor dietary habits leads to further overconsumption of processed food and beverages but the long-term effects on cognitive processes and hyperactivity from sugar overconsumption, beginning at adolescence, are not known," said Professor Bartlett.
"Our study found long-term sugar consumption (a 12-week period with the mice which started the trial at five weeks of age) at a level that significantly boosts weight gain, elicits an abnormal and excessive stimulation of the nervous system in response to novelty. It also alters both episodic and spatial memory. These results are like those reported in attention deficit and hyperactivity disorders.
"Human trials would need to be done but it suggests a link to the long-term overconsumption of sugar, beginning at a young age, which occurs more commonly in the Western Diet and an increased risk of developing persistent hyperactivity and neurocognitive deficits in adulthood."
Professor Bartlett said while the concept of 'sugar addiction' and the classification of sugar as a substance of abuse were still being debated, there is increasing evidence of overlap in the brain circuitry and molecular signalling pathways involved in sugar consumption and drug abuse.
"People consume sugar and food to regulate energy balance, but also for pleasure and comfort. This hedonistic desire for palatable food is reward-driven and overeating can impact upon and even override our ability to regulate," Professor Bartlett said.
"It is increasingly considered that unrestricted consumption of high-sugar food and beverages within the Western Diet might be linked to the increased obesity epidemic. A strong association between attention-deficits/hyperactivity disorders and being overweight or obese have also been revealed.
"Taken together, these data suggest that sugar-induced obesity may participate to the developing pathogenesis of ADHD-like symptoms in western countries. In children, high sugar consumption correlates with hyperactivity and in adults, with inattention and impulsivity.
"What has been unclear though, is whether chronic overconsumption of sucrose -- starting from childhood -- would have the same negative impact on our nervous system, emotions or cognition throughout adulthood as other addictive drugs.
"This study on mice goes a long way to resolving that question. Our results show for the first time that long-term consumption of sucrose leads to significant weight gain and produces persistent hyperactivity and learning impairments."
Co-lead author Dr Arnauld Belmer added that while the overall sugar consumption has dropped since the mid-1990s, obesity rates have climbed.
"This rise in obesity rates could result from a delayed effect of excess sugar, suggesting that adult obesity may be driven by high sugar intake over a life span," Dr Belmer said.
"Interestingly, our investigation with the mice found reducing the daily sucrose intake four-fold did prevent sugar-induced increase in weight gain, supporting the WHO's recommendation to restrict sugar intake by this amount would be effective. It could also limit the other negative consequences including hyperactivity and cognitive impairment."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210608092239.htm
Lack of math education negatively affects adolescent brain and cognitive development
A new study suggests that not having any math education after the age of 16 can be disadvantageous
June 7, 2021
Science Daily/University of Oxford
Adolescents who stopped studying maths exhibited greater disadvantage -- compared with peers who continued studying maths -- in terms of brain and cognitive development, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
133 students between the ages of 14-18 took part in an experiment run by researchers from the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford. Unlike the majority of countries worldwide, in the UK 16-year-old students can decide to stop their maths education. This situation allowed the team to examine whether this specific lack of maths education in students coming from a similar environment could impact brain development and cognition.
The study found that students who didn't study maths had a lower amount of a crucial chemical for brain plasticity (gamma-Aminobutyric acid) in a key brain region involved in many important cognitive functions, including reasoning, problem solving, maths, memory and learning. Based on the amount of brain chemical found in each student, researchers were able to discriminate between adolescents who studied or did not study maths, independent of their cognitive abilities. Moreover, the amount of this brain chemical successfully predicted changes in mathematical attainment score around 19 months later. Notably, the researchers did not find differences in the brain chemical before the adolescents stopped studying maths.
Roi Cohen Kadosh, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, led the study. He said: "Maths skills are associated with a range of benefits, including employment, socioeconomic status, and mental and physical health. Adolescence is an important period in life that is associated with important brain and cognitive changes. Sadly, the opportunity to stop studying maths at this age seems to lead to a gap between adolescents who stop their maths education compared to those who continue it. Our study provides a new level of biological understanding of the impact of education on the developing brain and the mutual effect between biology and education.
"It is not yet known how this disparity, or its long-term implications, can be prevented. Not every adolescent enjoys maths so we need to investigate possible alternatives, such as training in logic and reasoning that engage the same brain area as maths."
Professor Cohen Kadosh added, "While we started this line of research before COVID-19, I also wonder how the reduced access to education in general, and maths in particular (or lack of it due to the pandemic) impacts the brain and cognitive development of children and adolescents. While we are still unaware of the long-term influence of this interruption, our study provides an important understanding of how a lack of a single component in education, maths, can impact brain and behaviour."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210607161149.htm
Attentive listening helps teens open up
June 4, 2021
Science Daily/University of Reading
Engaged listening techniques such as eye contact, nodding and using key words to praise openness helps teenagers when they admit bad behaviour and share hurt feelings with their parents, a new study has shown.
University of Reading and Haifa researchers asked 1001 13 to 16-year-olds to watch a staged conversation between a parent and teenager about a difficult situation, with the parent adopting different body language and listening behaviour in different versions.
The participants who watched the versions where the parent was visibly attentive stated that they would have felt better about themselves as the teenager and would be more likely to open up about their feelings again in the future.
The study, the first to look at quality of listening in isolation from other parenting techniques, revealed that being more engaged while listening made the teenagers feel more authentic and connected with the parent.
Dr Netta Weinstein, associate professor in clinical and social psychology at the University of Reading, who co-led the study, said:
"We all know that listening to someone talk about their problems is an effective way of reassuring them and establishing a connection. However, until now there has been little thought given to the quality of that listening, and the difference that makes."
"This study shows that in parent-teenager relationships, quietly listening to a teenager while showing them they are valued and appreciated for their honesty has a powerful effect on their willingness to open up."
For the study published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, a roughly even split of male and female adolescents were recruited, with three identifying as another gender. The team found that active listening was equally important across all participants.
The first video conversation scenario portrayed a teenage boy admitting to his mother that he had tried vaping and felt ashamed, and in the second he tells his mother he was rejected by his peers after refusing to vape and felt hurt.
Each video scenario had a version where the parent listened attentively, and another where they appeared more distracted, and used less eye contact.
Dr Weinstein said:
"With such a large group of participants, it is reassuring to see that active listening was universally beneficial across these years of adolescence."
"The study has some important implications for teenage wellbeing as well. The participants said that the good listening model observed in the videos would lead to better wellbeing. Although we don't know how often the expectations meets reality, but it's clear that active listening is more likely to lead to a good outcome for teenagers than the more passive style we tested it against."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210604122722.htm
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