1st-graders with attention problems lag behind for years
A new study has claimed that the age at which attention problems emerge makes a critical difference in a kid’s later academic performance.
When the problems emerged in first grade, kid’s performance suffered for years afterward. For instance, those kids scored lower than their peers on reading achievement scores after fifth grade.
The poor performance occurred even if the attention problems were fleeting and improved after first grade.
By contrast, children who developed attention problems starting in second grade performed as well as their peers in later years. The research was conducted by Duke psychologists David Rabiner, Madeline Carrig and Kenneth Dodge, the William McDougall Professor of Public Policy and director of Duke’s Center for Child and Family Policy. It draws on data from the Fast Track Project, a longitudinal study of the development of conduct problems that has followed 891 individuals in four different locales from kindergarten into adulthood. The attention study examined academic performance among a subsample of 386 children by looking at grades as well as reading and math scores before and after first grade, and again after fifth grade. (ANI)
New cure for hair loss?
Researchers in the US have claimed that they have invented a hair restoration method that can solve the problem of baldness. Researchers at the Columbia University Medical Centre (CUMC) have devised a hair restoration method that can generate new human hair growth, rather than simply redistributing hair from one part of the scalp to another. According to the study, published Monday in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the researchers harvested dermal papillae from seven human donors and cloned the cells in tissue culture — no additional growth factors were added to the cultures. After a few days, the cultured papillae were transplanted between the dermis and epidermis of human skin that had been grafted onto the backs of mice. In five of the seven tests, the transplants resulted in new hair growth that lasted at least six weeks. DNA analysis confirmed that the new hair follicles were human and genetically matched the donors. “This approach has the potential to transform the medical treatment of hair loss,” said first author of the study Claire A. Higgins. (Agencies)
Poverty, stress during childhood impairs brain function
A new study has claimed that poverty and chronic stress during childhood could lead to problems regulating emotions as an adult. “Our findings suggest that the stress-burden of growing up poor may be an underlying mechanism that accounts for the relationship between poverty as a child and how well your brain works as an adult,” Dr. K. Luan Phan, of Illinois at Chicago College said.
The study was conducted by researchers at UIC, Cornell University, University of Michigan and University of Denver.
The researchers found that test subjects who had lower family incomes at age 9 exhibited, as adults, greater activity in the amygdala, an area in the brain known for its role in fear and other negative emotions.
These individuals showed less activity in areas of the prefrontal cortex, an area in the brain thought to regulate negative emotion. (ANI)
Adults who use internet likelier to partake in cancer-preventive behaviours
A new study has revealed that older men and women who are consistent internet users are twice as likely to participate in screening for colorectal cancer compared with those who do not use the internet. A large, population-based, cohort study of older adults in England, collected data from men and women aged 50 or older, and found that both men and women who used the internet consistently were also 50 percent more likely to take part in regular physical activity, 24 percent more likely to eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables daily, and 44 percent less likely to be current smokers. There was, however, no association between internet use and participation in breast cancer screening among women. “We accounted for sociodemographic factors that influence internet use and various measures of physical capabilities and cognitive function that decline with age, and still found an association between internet use and cancer-preventive behaviors,” Christian von Wagner, Ph.D., senior lecturer in behavioural research in early diagnosis of cancer at the University College London, United Kingdom, said. Wagner said that the interesting aspect here is a dose-response relationship between internet use and cancer preventive-behaviours: Intermittent users were more likely to have cancer-preventive behaviours than never-users, and consistent users were more likely to have cancer-preventive behaviours than intermittent users. It was found that internet use was higher in younger, male, white, wealthier, and more educated participants and lower in older, less wealthy, and nonwhites individuals with physical disabilities. (ANI)