The researchers compared 68 age- and sex-matched, case-control pairs from their research in Jamaica, where UTHealth has been studying autism in collaboration with The University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica.

“This should put to rest discrepancies in previous studies showing that just maternal age or just paternal age are linked to having a child with autism,” said Mohammad Hossein Rahbar, Ph.D., principal investigator and professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at The University of Texas School of Public Health, part of UTHealth. “Our results revealed that the age of the father and the mother are jointly associated with autism in their children.”

The study found that mothers who had children with autism were on average 6.5 years older than women who did not have a child with autism. The corresponding age difference for fathers was 5.9 years.

Previous studies used statistical models that made it hard to assess both maternal and paternal age as joint risk factors, a problem called multicollinearity, Rahbar said, noting he was able to use more complex statistical models to avoid the problem.

The research was published this month in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

Source: The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth)

Investigators discovered that the adults are likely to be living in a private household, resulting in an underestimation of autism prevalence.

Dr. Terry Brugha, professor of psychiatry at the University of Leicester, led the research on discovering “invisible” cases of autism with his research published by the NHS Information Centre. The report presents findings from a new study based on a sample of people with learning disabilities living in private households and communal care establishments.

“We were surprised by how many adults with moderate to profound learning disability had autism because previous estimates pointed to lower rates in this group.

“Because they form a very small part of the adult population, when we added these new findings to the rate we had previously found in adults living in private households, and able to take part in our national survey in 2007, the overall percentage of adults in England with autism did not increase significantly over our 2007 estimate of 1 percent.”

“Our finding that about 60 percent of men with profound learning disabilities and 43 percent of women with profound learning disabilities have autism has never been shown previously. It may also seem surprising how many live at home with parents or carers who provide 24 hour care and shoulder a considerable burden: 42 percent of men and 29 percent of women with severe learning disabilities living with family members and in other private households have autism.

“Taken together with the 2007 survey findings this means that most adults with autism live in private households, and before these two surveys they remained largely invisible.”

Brugha added, “This new information will be of particular importance for those who plan and provide services to support those with learning disabilities. In March 2010, the government published a national strategy for autism and guidance for the condition, with the view to improving the quality of services provided to adults with autism in England.

“Such improvements can only be achieved if the number of people with recognised and unrecognised autism is quantified. The strategy gave special emphasis to the need to train staff who have responsibility for identifying people with autism and their care. It will be vital to repeat such studies in future years in order to make sure that the national strategy is working effectively.”

Dr. Sally-Ann Cooper of the University of Glasgow, who also contributed to the latest study, commented: “Until now, routine statistics have not been gathered on the numbers of people with learning disabilities who also have autism, leaving this as a hidden problem. Our study clearly shows that the more severe to profound an adult’s learning disability is, the more likely they will be found to have autism if actually assessed.”

Source: University of Leicester

“Research shows there is a spike in alcohol-related consequences that occur in the first few weeks of the semester, especially with college freshmen,” said Michael J. Cleveland, research associate at the university’s Prevention Research Center and the Methodology Center.

“If you can safely navigate through that passage, you reduce the risk of later problems occurring.”

The researchers tested two methods of intervention on freshmen — parent-based intervention and peer-based intervention. They found that students who were non-drinkers before starting college, and who received the parent-based intervention, were unlikely to become heavy drinkers when surveyed again during the fall semester of their first year.

Students who were heavy drinkers during the summer before college were more likely to transition out of that group if they received either parent-based intervention or peer-based intervention.

About 8 percent of the incoming freshmen were heavy drinkers the summer before starting college, Cleveland reported. The researchers surveyed the students again during the fall semester and found 28 percent of the freshmen now drank heavily.

The results of the latest study were based on a study of 1,275 high-risk college students originally conducted in 2006 by Rob Turrisi, Ph.D., a Penn State professor. Turrisi and his colleagues randomly assigned students to one of four intervention groups — parent-based intervention only, peer-based intervention only, both parent- and peer-based intervention, or no intervention — and then surveyed the students on their drinking behaviors the summer before they entered college and then again during their first fall semester.

The parent-based intervention involved parents receiving a 35-page handbook outlining how to discuss the issue of alcohol and how to relate to their college student. Parents were asked to fill out an evaluation of the booklet, which also served as a measure to determine how many parents read the material. All parents completed the evaluations.

For peer-based intervention, subjects met one-on-one with a trained peer facilitator once within the first two weeks on campus. The meetings were 45 to 60 minutes long and included “drinking consequences, alcoholic caloric consumption, and hours of exercise required to burn those calories,” the researchers report.

All students included in that survey were former high school athletes, chosen because this group is considered at high risk for heavy alcohol use and its consequences, which include risky sex, driving drunk and personal injury or death, the researchers add.

In the new investigation, Cleveland and his colleagues approached the study differently. Rather than focusing on average levels of drinking — peak blood alcohol content, drinks per weekend and drinks per week — Cleveland reanalyzed the data to determine patterns of drinking, as well as how the students responded to intervention. This allowed the researchers to examine how drinking patterns varied throughout the week, as well as how the interventions could be linked to students’ transitions from one subgroup to another.

“We found four subgroups of drinkers, which is an important advance to understanding different types of drinking that were present in this college sample,” said Cleveland.

The subgroups included non-drinkers, who did not drink at all; weekend non-bingers, who tended to only drink socially on Fridays and Saturdays; weekend bingers, who were likely to report binge drinking and getting drunk in the past month on Fridays and Saturdays; and heavy drinkers, who reported drinking every day of the week, most notably Thursdays.

Although neither intervention strategy appeared to influence the weekend drinkers, whether bingers or non-bingers, the intervention effects on the nondrinkers and heavy drinkers were promising, said Cleveland.

“From here we may be able to tailor the intervention to different types of students,” said Cleveland. “By figuring out a way to match the intervention to the individual you can also maximize your resources for intervention.”

Cleveland is continuing his work, including using the same methods to study the drinking behaviors of young adults who are not attending college.

The results of the latest research, which was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, appeared online in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors.

Source: Penn State

Friends drinking photo by shutterstock.

Researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis determined school-age children whose mothers nurtured them early in life have brains with a larger hippocampus. The hippocampus is a key structure important to learning, memory and response to stress.

The research is published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition.

“This study validates something that seems to be intuitive, which is just how important nurturing parents are to creating adaptive human beings,” said first author Joan L. Luby, M.D.

“I think the public health implications suggest that we should pay more attention to parents’ nurturing, and we should do what we can as a society to foster these skills because clearly nurturing has a very, very big impact on later development.”

Researchers performed brain-imaging on children ages 7 to 10 who had participated in an earlier study of preschool depression approximately 10 years prior.

That study involved children, ages 3 to 6, who had symptoms of depression, other psychiatric disorders or were mentally healthy with no known psychiatric problems.

As part of the initial study, the children were closely observed and videotaped interacting with a parent, almost always a mother, as the parent was completing a required task, and the child was asked to wait to open an attractive gift.

How much or how little the parent was able to support and nurture the child in this stressful circumstance — which was designed to approximate the stresses of daily parenting — was evaluated by raters who knew nothing about the child’s health or the parent’s temperament.

“It’s very objective,” said Luby, a professor of child psychiatry. “Whether a parent was considered a nurturer was not based on that parent’s own self-assessment. Rather, it was based on their behavior and the extent to which they nurtured their child under these challenging conditions.”

One criticism of the study is that researchers didn’t observe parents and children in their homes or repeat stressful exercises. However, other studies of child development have used similar methods as valid measurements of whether parents tend to be nurturers when they interact with their children.

In the current study, scientists conducted brain scans on 92 of the children who had had symptoms of depression or were mentally healthy when they were studied as preschoolers. The imaging revealed that children without depression who had been nurtured had a hippocampus almost 10 percent larger that children whose mothers were not as nurturing.

“For years studies have underscored the importance of an early, nurturing environment for good, healthy outcomes for children,” Luby said. “But most of those studies have looked at psychosocial factors or school performance.

“This study, to my knowledge, is the first that actually shows an anatomical change in the brain, which really provides validation for the very large body of early childhood development literature that had been highlighting the importance of early parenting and nurturing.

“Having a hippocampus that’s almost 10 percent larger just provides concrete evidence of nurturing’s powerful effect.”

Researchers say it is logical that the hippocampus is smaller among depressed children as adult studies have demonstrated similar results. What was surprising was how nurturing made such a big difference in mentally healthy children.

“We found a very strong relationship between maternal nurturing and the size of the hippocampus in the healthy children,” Luby said.

Although 95 percent of the parents whose nurturing skills were evaluated during the earlier study were biological mothers, the researchers say that the effects of nurturing on the brain are likely to be the same for any primary caregiver — whether they are fathers, grandparents or adoptive parents.

The fact that the researchers found a larger hippocampus in the healthy children who were nurtured is striking, Luby says, because the hippocampus is such an important brain structure.

Investigators say the hippocampus is a key structure for regulating the involuntary release of stress hormones. The system is activated when the body faces stresses, as the hormones help us cope with stress by increasing the heart rate and helping the body adapt.

The hippocampus is also key in learning and memory, and a larger size hippocampus would suggest a link to improved performance in school, among other things.

Luby said educators who work with families who have young children may improve school performance and child development by not only teaching parents to work on particular tasks with their children but by showing parents how to work with their children.

“Parents should be taught how to nurture and support their children. Those are very important elements in healthy development,” Luby said.

Source: Washington University School of Medicine

Mother and child photo by shutterstock.

The study reveals that the mechanism for using ‘inner speech’ or ‘talking things through in the mind’ is present in children with autism; however, they do not always use it in the same way as typically developing children do.

The researchers discovered that a lack of thinking in words is strongly tied to the extent of an individual’s communication problems which begin in early childhood.  However, intervention strategies aimed at encouraging children to engage in ‘mental talk’ appear helpful. For example, encouraging children to describe their actions out loud has been successful for increasing mental flexibility in typically developing children.

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may benefit from verbally learning their daily schedule at school instead of using visual timetables, the common approach.

“Most people will ‘think in words’ when trying to solve problems, which helps with planning or particularly complicated tasks. Young, typically developing children tend to talk out loud to guide themselves when they face challenging tasks,“ said lead author David Williams, lecturer in the department of psychology at Durham University.

“However, only from about the age of seven do they talk to themselves in their head and, thus, think in words for problem-solving. How good people are at this skill is in part determined by their communication experiences as a young child.”

In the study, individuals who struggled most with communication also had a more difficult time using inner speech for complex tasks. Participants with ASD did, however, use inner speech to recall things from short-term memory.

“These results show that inner speech has its roots in interpersonal communication with others early in life, and it demonstrates that people who are poor at communicating with others will generally be poor at communicating with themselves,” said Williams.

“It also shows that there is a critical distinction between being able to express yourself verbally and actually using silent language for problem-solving. For example, the participants with ASD in our study were verbally able, yet did not use inner speech to support their planning.”

Caroline Hattersley, Head of Information, Advice and Advocacy at the National Autistic Society, said, “This study presents some interesting results and could further our understanding of autism. If the findings are replicated on a wider scale they could have a significant impact on how we develop strategies to support children with the disability.”

For the study, 15 high-functioning adults with ASD and 16 control participants were asked to take a commonly used test which measures planning ability. The task included five colored disks which could be arranged onto three individual pegs. The point was to transform one arrangement of disks into another by moving the disks between the pegs, one disk at a time, in as few moves as possible. This task is helped by ‘talking to yourself in your head.’

The volunteers took the test under normal conditions as well as under an ‘articulatory suppression’ condition in which they had to repeatedly speak a certain word throughout the task, in this case, either the word ‘Tuesday’ or ‘Thursday.’

Articulatory suppression prevents the individual from using inner speech and will negatively affect this aspect of planning performance; however, it will only have a slight impact on the planning performance of a person who doesn’t use inner speech.

Almost 90 percent of typically developing adults did far worse on the task when asked to repeat the word, but only one third of people with autism were in any way negatively affected by articulatory suppression.   This suggests that, unlike neurotypical adults, participants with autism do not normally use inner speech to help themselves plan.

The study was co-authored by Professor Chris Jarrold of Bristol’s School of Experimental Psychology and published in Development and Psychopathology.

Source: Durham University

“Having a best friend present during an unpleasant event has an immediate impact on a child’s body and mind,” said co-author William M. Bukowski, Ph.D., a psychology professor and director of the Concordia Centre for Research in Human Development.

“If a child is alone when he or she gets in trouble with a teacher or has an argument with a classmate, we see a measurable increase in cortisol levels and decrease in feelings of self-worth.”

In the study, 55 boys and 48 girls in fifth and sixth grades in Montreal schools kept journals on their feelings and experiences over the course of four days and submitted to regular saliva tests that monitored cortisol levels.

Although previous studies have shown that friendships can protect against later adjustment difficulties, this study is the first to demonstrate that the presence of a friend results in an immediate benefit for the child undergoing a negative experience, the researchers said.

These results have far-reaching implications, Bukowski said.

“Our physiological and psychological reactions to negative experiences as children impact us later in life,” he said. “Excessive secretion of cortisol can lead to significant physiological changes, including immune suppression and decreased bone formation. Increased stress can really slow down a child’s development.”

“What we learn about ourselves as children is how we form our adult identities,” Bukowski said. “If we build up feelings of low self-worth during childhood, this will translate directly into how we see ourselves as adults.”

The study was published in the journal Developmental Psychology.

Source: Concordia University

Amélie Quesnel-Vallée, Ph.D., a medical sociologist from McGill University, and co-researcher Miles Taylor reviewed 29 years of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979.

In their analysis, they reviewed associations between a parent’s education level and their children’s education level, household income and depressive symptoms. They discovered that higher levels of parental education meant fewer mental health issues for their adult children.

“However, we also found much of that association may be due to the fact that parents with more education tend to have children with more education and better paying jobs themselves,” said Quesnel-Vallée.

“What this means is that the whole process of climbing up the social ladder that is rooted in a parent’s education is a crucial pathway for the mental health of adult children.”

Researchers believe these findings imply that improving educational opportunities for everyone, but especially the underprivileged, could stop the vicious cycle between low social economic status and poor mental health.

“Children don’t get to choose where they come from. I think we have a responsibility to address health inequalities borne out of the conditions of early childhood,” said Quesnel-Vallée.

The paper was recently published in the journal Social Science & Medicine.

Source: McGill University

Depressed woman photo by shutterstock.

“Even though parents and clinicians have often observed that children with ASD tend to be preoccupied with screen-based media, ours is the first large-scale study to explore this issue,” said Micah Mazurek, Ph.D., a University of Missouri assistant professor in the School of Health Professions.

“We found that 64 percent of adolescents with ASD spent most of their free time watching TV and playing video and computer games. These rates were much higher than among those with other types of disabilities. On the other hand, adolescents with ASD were less likely to spend time using email and social media.”

Researcher discovered that an overwhelming majority of kids with ASD (64.2 percent) spend most of their free time using solitary, or non-social, screen-based media (television and video games). Only 13.2 percent spend time on socially interactive media including email and internet chat or text.

Researchers say this is the first study to examine the prevalence of screen-based media use within a large nationally representative sample of youths with autism spectrum disorders.

Investigators studied data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study 2, a group of more than 1,000 adolescents enrolled in special education. The study includes youths with autism spectrum disorders, learning and intellectual disabilities, and speech and language impairments.

The findings affirm that solitary screen-based media use represents a primary and preferred activity for a large percentage of youths with ASD, Mazurek said.

Unfortunately, the obsession with screen media has been found to slow academic performance, social engagement, behavioral regulation, attention and health in developing children.

“This is an important issue for adolescents with ASD and their families. Studies have shown that excessive use of TV and video games can have negative long-term effects for typically developing children,” Mazurek said.

“In future studies, we need to learn more about both positive and negative aspects of media use in children with ASD. We need to look for ways to capitalize on strengths and interests in screen-based technology.”

Source: University of Missouri

Child playing a video game photo by shutterstock.

In a recent study published in the journal Psychological Science, Brandeis University psychologist Margie Lachman, Ph.D., and colleagues found that while children raised in families with low socioeconomic status frequently go on to have high rates of chronic illness in adulthood, a sizable minority remain healthy throughout their lives.

The new research sought to examine if parental nurturing could mitigate the effects of socioeconomic disadvantages in childhood.

“The literature is very clear that people who are low in socioeconomic status have worse health than their same-age counterparts,” said Lachman. “Modifiable factors play an important role, and we are realizing that things can be done to try to minimize these health disparities.”

Money and health care access are part of what is known as the social gradient in health, she says, but numerous studies show they play a very small role, as countries with universal health care have the same social gradient.

The researchers found that the level of education attained by the parents is a more reliable indicator — people who have a college education do well in many areas, such as physical health, psychological well-being and cognitive function.

The team is looking for ways to reduce the differences, as not all lower-socioeconomic status people fare the same — some, Lachman said, are physically and cognitively active and have good social support, resources which seems to reduce their risks for poorer functioning.

The study looked at socioeconomic status during childhood and whether it predicted poor health many years later. It also examined risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes within the context of a large survey.

More than 1,000 members of the nationally representative sample were brought to a medical clinic for an overnight stay and samples were taken to assess pre-clinical indicators of disease. To qualify for a metabolic syndrome diagnosis, which is a precursor to coronary artery disease, Type 2 diabetes and stroke, adults had to have central adiposity (large waist circumference) and at least two of the following: high blood pressure, raised triglycerides, raised fasting glucose levels, or low levels of high-density lipoprotein (a specific cholesterol reading).

The researchers note that emerging literature reveals that many of the health problems in midlife, including metabolic syndrome, can be traced back to what happened in early childhood. The stresses of childhood can leave a biological residue that shows up in midlife, said Lachman. Yet, among those at risk for poor health, adults who had nurturing mothers in childhood fared better in physical health in midlife.

“Perhaps it’s a combination of empathy, the teaching of coping strategies or support for enrichment,” said Lachman. “We want to understand what it is about having a nurturing mother that allows you to escape the vulnerabilities of being in a low socioeconomic status background and wind up healthier than your counterparts.”

The study has followed the same 1,205 people for over a decade. Nurturance was assessed with data and included questions such as: How much did she understand your problems and worries and how much time and attention did she give you when you needed it?

“We would like to try to use this information to bolster vulnerable families who are at risk for not doing well,” said Lachman. “Teaching them parenting skills to show children concern for their welfare, how to cope with stress, that they have some control over their destinies, and how to engage in health-promoting behaviors such as good diet and exercise — the things that could protect against metabolic syndrome.”

The study also showed that a father’s nurturing did not contribute to better health.

“It could be that the results are tied to the particular cohort studied, and there may be generational differences,” said Lachman. “With this cohort, people who are now in midlife, fathers weren’t typically very involved. Paternal nurturance may play more of a role for the children of these midlife fathers who, in contrast, are more involved in the lives of their children and perhaps more nurturant.”

As the study continues the researchers will be able to look at new generations of middle-aged adults who have had different parenting experiences, she added.

“The fact that we can see these long-term effects from childhood into midlife is pretty dramatic,” Lachman said. “Yet this study is just one small piece of this overall puzzle. The more modifiable factors that can be identified, the more likely it is that we will be able to intervene successfully to optimize health.”

Source: Brandeis University

Mother with child photo by shutterstock.

Investigators from the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers found that women who use paid leave are far more likely to be working nine to 12 months after a child’s birth than those who do not take any leave. These women also report increases in wages from pre- to post-birth.

“While we have known for a long time about the maternal and infant health benefits of leave policies, we can now link paid family leave to greater labor force attachment and increased wages for women, as well as to reduced spending by businesses in the form of employee replacement costs, and by governments in the form of public assistance,” said author Linda Houser, Ph.D.

Researchers discovered women who take paid leave are 39 percent less likely to receive public assistance and 40 percent less likely to receive food stamps in the year following a child’s birth, when compared to those who do not take any leave.

Not only is paid leave associated with fewer dollars in public assistance spending, it reduces the chance that a family receiving public assistance will increase its use of public funding following a child’s birth, Houser said.

“At a time when governments are struggling with deficits and working families are struggling to stay afloat, this new study shows that allowing workers to take paid time off to recover from illness or care for their families saves precious government and taxpayer resources, while giving families the stability they urgently need,” said Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families.

“There couldn’t be a better time for employers and legislators to prioritize these policies.”

Researchers analyzed data collected from 1997 to 2009 by the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics’ and discovered a 13 percent increase (to 72.3 percent) in the percentage of children with both parents (in married-couple families) or their only parent working.

“Despite public conversation and energy around the value of strong families and secure childhoods, the United States has fallen notably behind other industrialized countries in adopting public policies that support workers who need time off to address family needs,” the researchers write.

Investigators also noted that except for a handful of states, public policy in the U.S. has been limited to unpaid leave.

Since 1993, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) has required that eligible employees who work for employers with a minimum of 50 workers be provided up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave annually “for their own health or the health of a family member.”

The absence of federal-level policy pertaining to paid family leave often forces workers to “cobble together” such employer-provided leave as sick days, holidays, vacation time, disability insurance and/or paid or unpaid leave to deal with personal or family health problems. Many low-income workers have no vacation, sick or other leave.

“A handful of states (California, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island) have taken the lead in providing some form of paid leave to workers, but it’s long past time for a national policy,” said Vicki Shabo, director of work and family programs at the National Partnership.

“Establishing a nationwide standard would allow workers to meet their families’ needs without sacrificing their economic security or having to rely on a patchwork of policies. The study demonstrates conclusively that doing so also would benefit businesses and our economy.”

The researchers conclude that changing workforce demographics, the work-family needs of a new generation of workers, and national and international trends toward workplace flexibility would create “a powerful case for a careful examination of the United States’ family leave policies.”

Source: Rutgers University

The serious developmental disorder affects nearly one in 100 children.

In a new study, investigators believe they have confirmed that low birth weight is an important environmental factor contributing to the risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Researchers studied a unique population, twin pairs in which only one of the twins was affected by ASD.

“Our study of discordant twins found birth weight to be a very strong predictor of autism spectrum disorder,” said Northwestern University researcher Molly Losh, Ph.D. Losh is lead author of the study that will be published in the journal Psychological Medicine and is now available online.

Prior twin studies have shown that when one identical twin had ASD, the other twin was much more likely to have ASD than not.

“Because identical twins share virtually 100 percent of their genes, this is strong evidence for the role of genetics in autism,” said Losh. “Yet it is not 100 percent the case that ASD affects both identical twins in a twin pair.”

“That only one twin is affected by ASD in some identical twin pairs suggests that environmental factors may play a role either independently or in interaction with autism risk genes,” she added.

“And because autism is a developmental disorder impacting brain development early on, it suggests that prenatal and perinatal environmental factors may be of particular importance.“

During the study, researchers found that lower birth weight more than tripled the risk for autism spectrum disorder in identical twin pairs in which one twin had ASD and the other did not.

An innovative study methodology was used to control for shared genetic and environmental factors as researchers used a co-twin control study design in which the ASD-affected twin served as the case and the unaffected twin served as the control.

Investigators found the risk for autism spectrum disorder rose 13 percent for every 100 gram- (3.5 ounce-) decrease in birth weight.

“There’s been a great deal of misinformation about the causes of autism — from the 1950s misconception that the distant maternal behavior of what were dubbed ‘refrigerator mothers’ was at fault to the ill-informed myth that vaccines can cause autism,” said Losh.

Losh and her colleagues’ findings add to a growing body of knowledge about the complex causes of autism and suggest that birth weight could be one of the environmental features that interacts with underlying genetic predisposition to autism.

Losh cautioned that the findings from twin studies might not extend to singletons, as the prenatal and perinatal conditions for twins and singletons differ in important ways.

For the study, researchers followed a population-based sample of 3,725 same-sex twin pairs that were part of the Swedish Twin Registry’s Child and Adolescent Twin Study. The discordant twins they studied were pairs in which one twin was more than 400 grams (about 14 ounces) or at least 15 percent heavier at birth than the other.

Source: Northwestern University

The University of Pittsburgh study compared the brain activity of adolescent and adult rats involved in a task in which they anticipated a reward.

The researchers found increased brain cell activity in an area of the brain called the dorsal striatum (DS) — a site commonly associated with habit formation, decision-making, and motivated learning.

However, when adult rats were exposed to the situation, this area of the adult rat brain did not become activated by an anticipated reward.

“The brain region traditionally associated with reward and motivation, called the nucleus accumbens, was activated similarly in adults and adolescents,” said Bita Moghaddam, Ph.D., a coauthor of the paper. “But the unique sensitivity of adolescent DS to reward anticipation indicates that, in this age group, reward can tap directly into a brain region that is critical for learning and habit formation.”

Rather than studying the difference or similarities between the behaviors of adolescents and adults, researchers studied brain actions to see if similar activities were present among the two groups.

The researchers’ predictions proved accurate. Even though the behavior was the same for both adult and adolescent rats, the researchers observed age-related neural response differences that were especially dramatic in the DS during reward anticipation.

This shows that not only is reward expectancy processed differently in an adolescent brain, but also it can affect brain regions directly responsible for decision-making and action selection.

“Adolescence is a time when the symptoms of most mental illnesses—such as schizophrenia and bipolar and eating disorders—are first manifested, so we believe that this is a critical period for preventing these illnesses,” Moghaddam said.

“A better understanding of how the adolescent brain processes reward and decision-making is critical for understanding the basis of these vulnerabilities and designing prevention strategies.”

Researchers state that future research will continue to compare adolescent and adult behavior, especially as it relates to stimulants—such as amphetamines—and their influence on brain activity.

Researchers published a paper on their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Source: University of Pittsburgh

Experts say that gangs accounted for 20 percent of the murders in 88 of the largest cities in the U.S. between 2002 and 2006.

Researchers looked at methods to actively discourage gang participation beginning with an analysis of cross-sectional data provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Violence Survey.

This survey included more than 4,000 teens at 16 government-funded schools, mostly between the ages of 14 and 18, and at high risk of being involved in violence as a result of coming from areas with high levels of serious crime and deprivation.

The responses showed that almost half (48 percent) had drunk alcohol and just over three out of five (62 percent) said they had participated in antisocial or delinquent behaviors during the past year. More than half (55 percent) said they had been bullied by a peer.

Positively, almost two thirds of the students said they either had the confidence to cope with conflict (just over 64 percent) or had parents who had provided positive reinforcement in the past month (63 percent).

A similar proportion said they were subject to at least moderate parental monitoring (64 percent), while most said they were supported at school (94 percent) and felt connected to their school (79 percent).

As a bottom-line, researcher found that just over 7 percent of the teens said they were in, or thinking of joining, a gang.

Most of these respondents had two or more risk factors (63 percent). But those with four or more were nearly six times as likely to be in, or want to join, a gang as their peers with no or only one risk factor.

And those teens with three or fewer protective factors were more than 5.5 times as likely to be in, or thinking of joining, a gang as those with four or more of them.

Researchers discovered regular drug and alcohol use and skipping school were key risk factors for gang affiliation, while moderate parental monitoring and good coping skills emerged as the strongest protective factors.

The protective factors were found to reduce the risk of gang involvement even among high risk teens.

Additionally, those who had at least one protective factor (good coping skills), were no more likely to get involved than their peers at low risk with neither protective factor.

Researchers believe the findings suggest that while it may not always be possible to reduce risk factors, parental monitoring and training on resiliency may significantly curb the lure of gangs.

The new study is published online in the journal Injury Prevention.

Source: British Medical Journal

Swedish researchers say that while the risk is small, mothers who take a serotonin-specific reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) late in pregnancy appear to double the risk in comparision with non-exposed cases.

Commonly used SSRI antidepressants include Celexa (citalopram), Lexapro (escitalopram), Prozac (fluoxetine), Luvox (fluvoxamine), Paxil (paroxetine), and Zoloft (sertraline).

Investigators acknowledge that the risks of a baby being born with persistent pulmonary hypertension are low. Normally only three infants per 1,000 develop the condition although when mothers take a SSRI late in pregnancy, the risk doubles.

As a result, experts caution the use of SSRIs among pregnant women.

Persistent pulmonary hypertension is a condition with high blood pressure in the lungs leading to difficulties in breathing. It is a rare but severe disease with strong links to heart failure.

The study, carried out by researchers from the five Nordic countries, looked at 1.6 million births in total between 1996 and 2007 in babies born after 231 days (33 weeks) in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.

A total of 1,618,255 singleton births were included in the study. Approximately 11,000 of the mothers filled out a prescription for antidepressants in late pregnancy and approximately 17,000 in early pregnancy.

Researchers identified 54,184 mothers as having previously undergone psychiatric diagnosis but were not currently taking any medication.

The uses of several drugs were analyzed which included fluoxetine, citalopram, paroxetine, sertraline, fluvoxamine and escitalopram.

The study’s results found that out of 11,014 mothers who used antidepressants in late pregnancy, 33 babies (0.2 percent) were born with persistent pulmonary hypertension and out of 17,053 mothers who used antidepressant drugs in early pregnancy, 32 babies (less than 0.2 percent) were diagnosed with persistent pulmonary hypertension.

A total of 114 babies whose mothers had previously been diagnosed with a mental illness were found to be suffering from the disease.

The study is published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

Source: Karolinska Institutet

A novel study finds that contracts and a new method of assessment can be successful used in the classroom.

Researchers discovered that when students design their own course, based on a contract, students scored higher grades and displayed better student satisfaction than on traditional points-based courses.

The research has been published in SAGE Open.

For the study, researchers Dana Lindemann and Colin Harbke assigned 40 college freshmen enrolled in one introductory psychology course to a traditional or contract grading system.

Those assigned to the contract system signed a contract at the beginning of the semester in which they indicated what grade they were aiming to receive and specified which assignments they would complete to receive that grade.

Students who wanted to receive a better grade had to complete more assignments and receive a higher score on exams than those aiming for a lower grade.

Though the instructor and course materials were identical for both sections, at the end of the semester, the group of students who were graded contractually were three times more likely to earn an A grade.

Investigators also learned that members of a contract group were one third as likely to fail or withdraw from the course.

Overall, students perceived a higher degree of control over their grade, and consistently rated their own effort, their instructor, and the course as more favorably.

“Students indicated higher ratings for working hard for their grade, enjoying the course format, and for enhancing independent thinking,” wrote the authors. “Contract graded students may be more motivated to perform well.”

Students assigned to contract groups were allowed to choose their coursework from a variety of assignments.

Additionally, the grading of assignments were performed as pass or fail, requiring that each student master 85 percent of the material to receive a passing grade. Students were also allowed to resubmit their assignments one time in order to receive a passing grade.

Researchers believe the pass/fail scoring scheme has significant value.

Lindemann and Harbke comment, “When assignments are graded pass or fail, emphasis is placed on mastery of the material, as opposed to gaining a partial understanding of the material.”

Source: SAGE Publications